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Upper  Campus 

From   an   Etching  by  Thomas  Wood   Stevens 


WISCONSIN 


BY 
J.  F.  A.   PYRE 


NEW  YORK 
OXFORD   UNIVERSITY   PRESS 

AMERICAN   BRANCH:  85  West  S2nd  Street 
LONDON.  TORONTO,  MELBOURNE.  AND  BOMBAY 

1920 


85891 


Copyright,  1920 

by  Oxford  University  Press 

american  branch 


(o  ! 


33 


TO  MY  WIFE 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTKB  PAOK 

I  The  State 1 

II  Anniversaries  and  Origins  ....  28 

III  The  Town  and  the  Campus       ...  63 

^         IV  The  Days  of  the  Chancellors  ...  79 

V  Bucolics 125 

!\^      VI  War  Times       .......  144 

VII  The  New  Era  . 159 

VIII  John  Bascom 191 

IX  Growing  Up 203 

">' .         X  Towards  a  University 241 

XI  Student  Lite 306 

XII  Under  Van  Hise 331 


^    Appendix 


■o 


A.  Analysis  of  Attendance,  1900-1918        .       .     389 

B.  Buildings  of  the  University     ....     391 
Index 397 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Upper  Campus Frontispiece 

From  an  etching  by  Thomas  Wood  Stevens. 

FACING   PAGE 

Edward  A.  Birge 29 

From  the  painting  by  Mr.  Christian  Abrahamson. 

The  State  Capitol  at  Night 63 

The  Old  South  Dormitory 125 

From  a  photograph  by  Mr.  L.  W.  Brown. 

Student  Poster,  1S66    .       .        .    '   .        .  (p.  154)  155 

From  a  photograph  of  the  specimen  preserved  by  the 
Wisconsin  Historical  Society. 

"Ladies  Hall"  (1871) 189 

From  an  old  engraving. 
Old  Library  Hall 203 

From  a  photograph  by  Mr.  L.  W.  Brown. 
University  Hall 241 

From  a  photograph  by  Mr.  L.  W.  Brown. 
The  Babcock  Test 273 

From  a  copyright  photograph  by  Mr.  M.  E.  Diemer. 
The  Historical  Library 303 

From  a  photograph  by  Mr.  L.  W.  Brown. 

The  Fraternity  Piers 323 

Charles  R.  Van  Hise 339 

From  the  painting  by  Mr.  Christian  Abrahamson. 
The  Stock  Pavilion 371 

From  a  photograph  by  Mr.  L.  W.  Brown. 


THE  STATE 

Wisconsin  is  one  of  the  arbitrary  units  carved  by 
federal  mandate  out  of  that  wide  region  which,  at  the 
end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  stretched  in  almost  un- 
challenged wildness  of  prairie,  swamp,  and  forest,  from 
the  Ohio  River  northward  among  the  Great  Lakes  and 
along  the  Mississippi, — the  region  which  is  known  in  his- 
tory as  the  Old  Northwest. 

The  area  which  lay  at  the  extreme  northwest  of  the 
Old  Northwest  was  a  more  obvious  geographical  entity 
than  any  other  of  the  five  units  into  which  that  region 
was  politically  constructed.  Three-fourths  surrounded 
by  Lake  Michigan,  Lake  Superior,  and  the  Mississippi, 
it  was  traversed  from  northeast  to  southwest  by  the 
main  primeval  thoroughfare  from  the  Great  Lakes  to 
the  Father  of  Waters ;  here  the  Fox  and  Wisconsin  rivers 
formed  a  continuous  waterway  through  the  interior,  with 
only  a  short  portage  between  them  near  their  head- 
waters. Because  of  its  remoteness  this  portion  of  the 
Northwest  was  the  last  to  be  settled,  and  before  its 
organization  was  consummated  a  series  of  territorial 
adjustments  had  much  narrowed  its  limits.  From  the 
original  design,  the  political  cleaver  sheared  away  a 
broad  slice  on  the  south  which,  commanding  the  base  of 
Lake  Michigan,  was  destined  to  lie  in  the  path  of  trans- 
continental commerce  and  yield  to  Illinois  the  metropolis 
of  the  Mississippi  valley.    Another  stroke  purloined  for 

1 


2  WISCONSIN 

Michigan  the  pine-lands  and  gigantic  ore-fields  of  the 
Northern  Peninsula.  Last,  an  irregular  piece  which 
angled  off  toward  the  Lake  of  the  Woods  and  surrounded 
the  head  of  Lake  Superior  was  taken  to  eke  out  that 
portion  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase  allotted  to  the  terri- 
tory of  Minnesota.1 

At  the  outset,  then,  Wisconsin  was  trimmed  of  terri- 
torial grandeur  and  reduced  to  that  mediocrity  of  for- 
tune which  belongs,  by  report,  to  the  truly  blest.  A 
moderate  extent  and  variety  of  material  resources,  a 
fair  equilibrium  of  interests,  a  compact  design,  and  a 
slight  insularity  of  position,  partly  conditioned  by  the 
absence  of  any  metropolis  of  staggering  importance,  have 
all  worked  their  part  in  fashioning  the  character  of  the 
state. 

Until  about  1830,  this  glorious  stretch  of  wilderness, 
long  a  happy  hunting  ground  of  Indian  trappers  and 
half-Indian  coureurs  de  hois,  continued  to  be  their 
domain.  The  Black  Hawk  war  of  1832  pacified  for  settle- 
ment the  delectable  valleys  of  the  interior  and  disclosed 
their  attractions  to  the  world.  The  misbehavior  of  the 
Indians  furnished  a  pretext,  moreover,  for  exacting 
treaties  which  opened  their  lands  to  registration.  The 
waters  by  which  Wisconsin  is  surrounded  on  three  sides, 
after  railroads  came  to  be  relied  on,  tended  to  preserve 
its  insularity;  but  at  this  time,  they  rendered  it  acces- 
sible.   The  stream  of  westering  homeseekers,  which  had 

1  The  amputation  which  did  actual  violence  to  geographic  unity 
■was  that  of  the  Northern  Peninsula  whose  riches  were  but  faintly 
realized  until  many  years  later  The  loss  most  resented  by 
Wisconsin  settlers  in  the  territorial  period  was  that  of  the  north- 
ern zone  of  Illinois  This  region  contained  part  of  the  lead  mines 
near  the  Mississippi,  and  was  in  most  respects  similar  to  the 
contiguous  portions  of  Wisconsin.  A  large  portion  of  its  inhabi- 
tants would  have  preferred  to  cast  in  their  lot  with  the  younger 
commonwealth.  Agitation  for  its  recovery  continued  up  to  the 
constitutional  convention  of  1S47. 


THE  STATE 


been  pouring  into  the  lower  peninsula  of  Michigan  for 
a  decade,  now  streamed  on  across  the  lake  or  swung 
round  its  base  and  swiftly  spread  out  on  the  prairies 
and  in  the  oak-studded  clearings  of  southern  Wis- 
consin. 

Settlement,  once  begun,  went  on  with  stirring  activity. 
When,  in  1836,  Michigan's  preparations  for  statehood  led 
to  the  separate  organization  of  Wisconsin  Territory, 
about  eleven  thousand  whites  were  reported  as  residing 
within  the  borders  of  the  latter;  but  the  fame  spread 
quickly  of  its  rolling  prairies  ready  for  the  plow,  its 
easily  accessible  wood  and  water-power,  its  outcroppings 
of  limestone  by  stream  and  hillside,  its  incalculable  pos- 
sessions, northward,  of  pine  and  minerals,  its  smiling 
sky,  and  its  salubrious  air.  Within  four  years  after  the 
territory  was  organized,  population  had  increased  three- 
fold. At  the  end  of  ten  years,  it  had  increased  over 
thirteen-fold ;  and  this  number,  155,277  in  1846,  doubled 
in  four  years  more,1  and  almost  doubled  again  in  another 
five.  Stated  in  absolute  numbers,  the  average  annual 
increase  was  1,300  from  1830  to  1836;  4,700  from  1836 
to  1840 ;  21,000  from  1840  to  1846 ;  37,500  from  1846  to 
1850;  49,400  from  1850  to  1855.  Thus,  in  the  fifteen 
years  between  1840  and  1855,  over  half  a  million  souls 
occupied  the  untamed  land  or  were  born  upon  it.  A 
state  constitution  had  been  drafted  in  1846,  but  rejected 
by  the  people;  a  second  was  promptly  approved,  and 
Wisconsin  entered  the  Union   (1848). 

1  According  to  the  U  S  Census  of  1850,  the  highest  ratio  of 
increase,  by  decades,  had  been  those  of  Michigan  (1830-40), 
575%;  Indiana  (1810-20),  510%;  and  Ohio  (1800-10),  408%. 
These  were  analogous  decades  in  the  settlement  of  the  respective 
territories.  Wisconsin's  increase  (1840-50)  was,  according  to  the 
same  authority,  891%.  (According  to  my  own  computation,  this 
should  be  1001%.)  The  nearest  rival  in  the  same  decade  was 
Iowa,  347%  Only  one  other  territory  (Arkansas,  110%)  exceeded 
100%  of  increase  during  this  decade. 


4  WISCONSIN 

Numerous  causes  besides  the  physical  attractiveness  of 
the  newly  opened  territory  contributed  toward  this  un- 
precedented rapidity  of  colonization.  Transportation 
had  made  great  strides  during  the  decade  immediately 
preceding  1840.  There  was  now  a  considerable  fleet  of 
steamboats  on  the  Great  Lakes,  with  ports  at  Milwaukee 
and  other  points  on  the  west  shore  of  Lake  Michigan. 
On  the  Mississippi  side,  the  lead  mines  had  carried  on 
a  thriving  steamboat  trade  for  some  time.  Railroads 
were  progressing  in  the  East  and,  shortly  after  1850, 
they  penetrated  into  Wisconsin  itself,  pushing  from  the 
lake  ports  inward.  The  financial  chaos  following  the 
panic  of  1837  tended  to  uproot  many  families  in  the 
older  states,  many  of  them,  in  fact,  but  lightly  attached 
to  the  soil.  It  was  the  era  of  short  specie,  wildcat  banks, 
exemptions,  and  repudiation  of  state  debts.  Even  so  new 
and  thriving  a  state  as  Michigan  was  involved  in  com- 
plicated financial  embarrassments  in  the  years  following 
1840;  partly  on  account  of  this,  she  was  almost  over- 
taken by  Wisconsin  during  this  decade.  To  those  suffer- 
ing from  such  conditions  Wisconsin  offered  strong  in- 
ducements. Taking  counsel  from  the  mistakes  of  others, 
it  had  succeeded  in  organizing  itself  without  debt,  and 
taxes,  as  yet,  were  insignificant.  It  was  a  land  of  barter, 
where  a  little  hard  money  went  a  long  way.  Rich 
farms  could  be  had  for  a  few  dollars  in  cash.  To  those 
of  a  speculative  turn,  prospective  city  lots  held  out 
promises  of  sudden  fortune,  promises  which  were  often 
fulfilled.  It  is  not  surprising  that  native  emigration 
set  in  this  direction. 

As  in  earlier  movements  of  population  in  this  country, 
the  new  settlers  came  in  chiefly  along  parallels  of  lati- 
tude. That  New  York  sent  the  chief  contingent  is 
obvious  to  anyone  who  possesses  a  cursory  acquaintance 


THE  STATE  5 

with  Wisconsin  pioneer  families.  Up  to  1850,  she  had 
sent  six  times  as  many  as  any  other  state  and  more 
than  one-fifth  of  the  entire  population  of  the  young 
commonwealth.  At  the  same  time,  over  eleven  thousand 
had  moved  in  from  Ohio.  Vermont  who,  for  a  century, 
has  poured  from  her  mountain  loins  a  larger  propor- 
tional share  of  her  native  born  than  any  other  state, 
sent  into  Wisconsin,  during  this  decade,  above  ten  thou- 
sand, that  is,  one  in  thirty  of  the  entire  population. 
From  Pennsylvania  came  between  nine  and  ten  thou- 
sand; while  something  over  five  thousand  natives  of 
Illinois  had  crossed  the  border.1  If  we  exclude  the  fifty- 
four  thousand  who  had  been  born  within  Wisconsin  itself 
(the  great  mass  must  have  been,  in  1850,  under  fifteen 
years  of  age  and  nearly  half  of  them  of  foreign  paren- 
tage), about  106,000,  or  seventy  per  cent,  of  the  native 
born  population  had  come  from  the  Middle  States  and 
New  England;  about  two-thirds  of  the  remainder  had 
come  from  the  sister  states  of  the  Old  Northwest, 
leaving  between  ten  and  twelve  thousand  who  had 
been  sprinkled  into  Wisconsin  from  every  state  in  the 
Union. 

But  these  were  the  years,  too,  when  an  increased 
number  of  Europeans  turned  their  faces  toward  Amer- 
ica. Recent  improvements  in  ocean  travel  made  it  pos- 
sible to  transfer  larger  masses  of  people  in  a  short  period 
from  continent  to  continent.  More  important  still,  con- 
ditions at  home  had  put  a  large  number  of  Europeans 

1  As  these  rough  estimates  are  based  on  the  nativity  statistics 
of  1850,  they  do  not  furnish  a  perfect  analysis  of  the  emigrations. 
Families  born  in  New  York  or  Vermont  might  have  spent  a  long 
period  in  Ohio  or  Illinois,  yet  count  as  having  entered  Wisconsin 
directly.  On  the  other  hand,  an  Irishman  might  have  come  to 
New  York  as  a  child,  yet  not  appear  in  these  estimates  as  a 
colonist  from  New  York.  The  writer  is  cognizant  of  numerous 
individual  cases  of  both  sorts.  On  the  whole,  however,  the  pro- 
portions must  have  been  about  as  here  indicated. 


6  WISCONSIN 

in  the  mind  to  seek  a  newer  world.  During  the  years 
from  1840  to  1850,  every  important  country  of  western 
and  northern  Europe  was  the  scene  of  great  economic 
distress,  or  of  social  unrest,  or  political  reorganization, 
or  of  all.  Doctors  of  many  shades  of  belief,  angles  of 
interest,  were  counseling  emigration  as  the  speediest 
means  of  relief,  whether  for  the  oppressed  individual  or 
the  harassed  state.  It  was  an  era  of  romantic  individual- 
ism and  of  physical  indigence.  The  idealistic  sentiment 
of  WilJielm  Meister,  ' '  'Tis  that  men  might  wander  in  it 
that  the  world  was  made  so  wide,"  coalesced  with  pru- 
dential philosophy;  minds  full  of  romantic  aspiration 
and  stomachs  empty  of  sustenance  pricked  on  the  unre- 
solved toward  wider  frontiers  and  fuller  granaries  across 
the  seas.  The  expansion  of  the  United  States  during  the 
past  twenty  years  had  demonstrated  that,  if  still  an  ex- 
periment, it  was  one  of  the  biggest  and  most  engrossing 
that  humanity  had  tried.  Immigration  was  already  in 
motion  when  the  Mexican  war  and  the  advance  into 
Oregon,  carrying  the  western  boundary  to  the  Pacific, 
were  climaxed  by  the  gold  discoveries  in  California, — an 
explosion  of  events  which  opened  thrilling  perspectives 
of  American  destiny. 

Knowledge  of  America  had  increased  enormously  in 
a  generation.  American  literature,  now  entering  upon 
its  worthiest  period,  was  attracting  somewhat  more 
favorable  attention  in  the  Old  World.  Cooper's  Leatlier- 
stocking  Tales,  of  which  the  last  and  one  of  the  most 
characteristic  appeared  in  1841,  had  attained  wide  popu- 
larity abroad,  especially  in  England  and  Germany. 
They  were  successful  in  throwing  over  American  fron- 
tier life  a  glamor  of  picturesque  excitement  which,  how- 
ever fictitious,  must  have  had  its  effect  upon  romantic 
spirits.    On  a  lower  plane,  the  fervid  prospectuses  with 


THE  STATE  7 

which  transportation  companies  flooded  Europe  took  no 
pains  to  discourage  enterprise  by  exaggerating  the  hard- 
ships of  transatlantic  existence.  Nor  was  literary  ex- 
ploitation of  the  New  World  confined  to  provincial 
authors  and  commercial  guide  books.  The  descriptions 
of  America  by  English,  French,  and  German  travelers, 
between  1823  and  1853,  form  a  considerable  library. 
Around  1840,  we  were  visited  by  a  number  of  dis- 
tinguished foreigners  who  had  the  gift  to  be  widely  read 
and  who,  whatever  their  aversion  to  our  taste  and  man- 
ners, did  not  disguise  their  astonishment  at  our  natural 
advantages;  who,  whatever  they  thought  of  our  free 
institutions,  could  not  deny  that  we  had  free  land.  De 
Tocqueville  (1831)  analyzed  our  institutions  with  a  Gal- 
lic acumen  which  recommended  his  book  to  a  world-wide 
circle  of  polite  readers.  Charles  Sealfield,  the  German- 
American  novelist,  exploited  the  Ohio  valley.  Miss  Mar- 
tineau  (1834-36),  Dickens  (1842),  Buckingham  (1842), 
all  reached  the  upper  Mississippi  region  and  made 
vivacious  reports  of  the  crass  but  teeming  life  they 
saw. 

Of  such  advertising,  Wisconsin  enjoyed  its  due  share. 
Hundreds  of  reports,  published  and  private,  in  various 
languages  were  circulated  in  Europe.  Of  these  perhaps 
none  attracted  more  readers  than  the  account  of  Captain 
Marryat,  the  popular  English  novelist.  In  June,  1837, 
Captain  Marryat  made  an  overland  trip  up  the  Fox  valley 
from  Green  Bay  to  Fort  Winnebago  (Portage),  and  in 
his  Diary,  published  shortly  after,  dwelt  with  super- 
lative pleasure  upon  this  portion  of  his  travels.  The 
landscape,  which  delighted  him  beyond  measure,  he 
analyzed  as  composed  of  "alternate  prairies,  oak  open- 
ings, and  forest."  The  "oak  openings"  were  the  most 
remarkable,  having  all  the  characteristics  of  the  lordly 


8  WISCONSIN 

parks  of  England;  "it  is,  in  fact,"  he  wrote,  "English 
park  scenery. ' '  The  prairies  he  saw  as  billowy  meadows 
asking  only  the  presence  of  thousands  of  cattle  to  become 
the  most  remunerative  pastures  in  the  world.  He  dwelt 
upon  the  healthfulness  of  the  climate  to  the  disadvan- 
tage of  the  country  south  and  east.  The  preparedness 
of  all  for  the  occupancy  of  man  impressed  him  pro- 
foundly ;  there  seemed  ' '  little  to  do  but  take  possession. ' ' 
"I  consider  the  Wisconsin  territory,"  he  declared,  "as 
the  finest  portion  of  North  America,  not  only  from  its 
soil,  but  its  climate." 

The  summer  the  above  words  were  written,  the  last 
of  the  treaties  was  concluded  which  extinguished  the 
Indian  title  in  all  Wisconsin  lands  south  of  the  Fox 
and  Wisconsin  rivers,  the  line  of  Marryat's  journey. 
A  brief  notice  of  the  various  foreign  constituents 
which  shortly  joined  in  the  development  of  this  region 
will  be  helpful  toward  an  appreciation  of  the  people 
who  composed  the  state  at  the  time  of  its  organiza- 
tion. 

The  British  Isles  were  undergoing  an  economic  crisis 
in  the  years  following  1840.  There  the  results  of  the 
industrial  revolution,  as  yet  but  imperfectly  understood, 
were  most  appalling.  Efforts  of  government  to  relieve 
the  distress  were  largely  futile.  Cabinet  after  cabinet 
grappled  helplessly  with  the  situation.  Political  bitter- 
ness was  acute.  The  agrarian  population  was  tragically 
destitute,  above  all  in  Ireland.  Carlyle's  grim  pictures 
are  well  known  ;  "the  blue-faced  Hibernian,"  "the  finest 
peasantry  in  Europe,"  demoniacal  peasantry,  thronged 
the  streets  of  English  towns,  ragged,  grinning,  begging, 
— debauching  the  English  labor  market.  To  crown  woe 
for  the  "root-fed  animal"  came  the  potato  famine  of 
1845.     The  exodus  began.     Crowded  to  capacity  with 


THE  STATE  9 

cargoes  of  wailing  peasantry,  ship  after  ship  departed 
for  the  New  World.  In  six  years  the  population  of  the 
wretched  little  island  was  depleted  by  nearly  two  mil- 
lions. Many  died  of  famine  and  pestilence  at  home; 
many,  crowded  into  filthy  ships,  did  not  live  to  see  the 
promised  land ;  most  who  arrived  were  too  devoid  of 
means  to  get  beyond  the  seaboard  and  remained  there 
as  laborers  about  the  cities  or  were  drafted  into  the 
cruel  sap-work  of  the  railroads,  whose  first  brilliant  era 
of  extension  was  now  at  hand.  Considerable  numbers, 
however,  worked  their  way  westward ;  and,  by  1850,  there 
had  established  themselves  in  Wisconsin,  21,000  Irish, 
most  of  them  desperately  poor. 

Conditions  similar  to  those  which  almost  annihilated 
Ireland  prevailed  throughout  the  United  Kingdom.  An 
emigration  of  100,000  a  year  began  in  1840  and  reached 
248,000  in  1847,  368,000  in  1852.  Of  these  a  large 
number  came  to  the  United  States.  English,  to  the 
number  of  19,000,  found  their  way  to  Wisconsin  before 
1850;  3,500  Scotch  and  4,300  Welsh  came  during  the 
same  period;  thus,  a  total  for  the  United  Kingdom  of 
48,000,  settled  in  Wisconsin  at  this  time, — half  as  many 
as  were  to  be  found  in  Indiana,  Illinois,  and  Michigan 
combined.  They  constituted  nearly  one-half  the  foreign 
born  population,  about  one  in  five  of  the  whole  acquired 
population  of  the  state. 

Of  the  eight  thousand  who  entered  from  Canada  a 
large  proportion  must  have  been,  likewise,  of  British 
extraction.  Nevertheless,  a  considerable  number  of 
Canadian  French  had  preceded  the  main  migration. 
Probably  the  most  noteworthy  of  these  was  Solomon 
Juneau,  founder  of  Milwaukee,  who  had  established  a 
trading  post  on  the  site  of  that  city  as  early  as  1818. 
Of  those  actually  born  in  France  the  state  had  less  than 


10  WISCONSIN 

a  thousand,  though  France,  too,  was  in  turmoil  during 
these  years. 

Popular  discontent  in  Germany,  which  found  expres- 
sion in  the  political  agitations  from  1830  to  1848,  had 
started  an  era  of  German  emigration  to  this  country. 
A  few  choice  spirits  to  whom  exile  was  the  dear  price 
of  liberty,  victims  of  government  persecution  of  the 
Student  Societies,  came  in  the  van  of  this  movement. 
Such  were  Francis  Lieber,  the  able  juridical  writer,  at 
one  time  professor  at  Columbia,  and  Carl  Follen,  first 
professor  of  German  at  Harvard.  Many  early  arrivals 
took  up  lands  in  the  Ohio  valley  and  became  the  famous 
"Latin  farmers"  of  that  region.  A  later  contingent 
pushed  down  the  river  into  Missouri.  But  the  German 
movement  reached  its  full  head  precisely  in  the  Wis- 
consin epoch. 

Desire  for  civil  liberty  was  the  pervading  motive  of 
German  emigration.  To  be  sure,  economic  forces  played 
their  part  in  dislodging  the  masses.  A  potato  shortage 
throughout  southern  Germany  in  1846-47,  and  again  in 
1852-53,  failure  of  the  vintage  in  Wiirtemberg,  1850-53, 
came  to  aggravate  hardships  already  sufficiently  severe 
on  account  of  overpopulation,  the  destruction  of  hand 
industries  through  the  substitution  of  machinery,  and  the 
difficulty  of  securing  lands  for  agricultural  purposes. 
German  arrivals  in  this  country  jumped  from  47,000  in 
1846  to  74,000  in  1847.  After  the  failure  of  the  revo- 
lution of  1848,  they  took  another  leap  and  by  1853  had 
reached  215,000  a  year.  As  has  been  said,  ideal  senti- 
ments were  an  important  factor  in  this  movement,  The 
Grundrechte  for  which  the  patriots  of  1848  bled  in  vain 
might  have  been  echoes  of  the  Wisconsin  constitution 
adopted  the  same  year.  The  shipwreck  of  this  attempt 
to  secure  popular  rights  not  only  sent  the  leaders  flying 


THE  STATE  11 

for  their  lives,  but  made  it  possible  to  mobilize  the  dis- 
appointed masses  for  the  invasion  of  a  new  Canaan. 
The  dream  of  an  exclusively  German  state  in  the  New 
World  came  to  naught ;  but  two  efforts  in  this  direction 
had  brought  Wisconsin  into  prominence  as  early  as 
1835-36.  Its  soil,  its  climate,  and  its  rich  forestation 
found  favor  in  German  eyes,  not  only  as  excellent  in 
themselves,  but,  so  many  averred,  because  they  recalled 
the  features  of  the  Fatherland.  To  the  usual  liberties 
guaranteed  by  our  state  constitutions  Wisconsin  added, 
moreover,  the  most  hospitable  alien  clause  as  yet  ratified 
by  any  state.  It  had  no  debt  and  it  had  cheap  lands  in 
profusion.  It  attracted  far  more  than  its  proportional 
share  of  this  new  element  so  adroitly  compounded  of 
the  aspirations  and  the  economies  which  make  for  the 
progress  and  solidity  of  popular  states.  The  total  Ger- 
man population  of  Illinois,  Indiana,  Michigan,  and  Iowa 
had  reached  in  1850,  about  83,000;  that  of  Wisconsin 
alone  was  nearly  half  this  number ;  something  over 
40,000,  or  one  in  six  of  its  acquired  population  were 
German  born.  Milwaukee,  destined  to  be  die  deutschese 
Stadt,  soon  became  the  greatest  distributing  point  for 
Germans  in  the  Northwest.  The  spring  of  1839  has  been 
set  as  the  time  when  German  immigrants  began  to  arrive 
there  in  considerable  numbers.  The  majority  of  the 
early  arrivals  were  small  farmers,  artisans,  or  rustic 
laborers,  a  class  of  settlers  sorely  needed  in  a  land  where 
everything  remained  to  be  done.  There  were,  however, 
a  few  men  of  education  among  them.  Dr.  Huebsch- 
mann,  who  reached  Milwaukee  in  1842,  was  a  Jena  man, 
and  at  once  became  prominent  in  the  young  state.  More 
of  this  class  came  after  1848.  Carl  Schurz,  the  most 
distinguished  of  the  ' '  forty-eighters, ' '  came  in  1852.  The 
same  year  brought  Edward  Salomon,  a  product  of  the 


12  WISCONSIN 

University  of  Berlin,  who  was  afterward  prominent  in 
the  government  of  the  state  and  conspicuously  useful  to 
the  university. 

As  the  colonizing  movement  proceeded  the  German 
land-seekers  usually  came  in  bands  of  fifty  or  one  hun- 
dred families  under  the  guidance  of  some  leader  or 
leaders,  .picked  out  their  farms  and  village  sites  in  the 
heavily  wooded  regions  along  the  lake  to  the  north  of 
Milwaukee,  pushed  into  the  forests  with  ox  and  cart, 
opening  their  way  with  the  ax  as  they  went,  and  settled 
down  in  solid  little  communities,  each  with  its  own 
church  and  its  local  brewery.  Many  of  the  first  gen- 
eration died  with  their  wooden  shoes  on,  acquiring  the 
industrial  habits  of  their  adopted  country  but  not  its 
speech  or  habits  of  mind.  The  influence  of  the  Ger- 
mans upon  the  social  life  of  the  state  was  to  be 
profound. 

Coincident  with  the  opening  of  Wisconsin  was  still 
another  immigration  movement,  that  from  Norway.  In 
1825,  a  party  of  fifty-two  Norwegians,  proselytes  of  some 
English  Quakers  at  Stavanger,  had  settled  in  Orleans 
County,  New  York.  Because  of  their  daring  voyage  in 
a  sailing  vessel  which  seems  to  have  been  startlingly 
diminutive  even  for  these  days,  they  are  known  to  his- 
tory as  ''the  Sloopers."  Ten  years  later,  an  offshoot 
of  this  community,  having  been  preceded  by  a  scouting 
party  of  six  men,  established  a  colony  in  Illinois.  The 
lure  of  the  West  at  this  time  is  well  explained  by  the 
fact  that  one  of  their  number  was  able  to  exchange  one 
hundred  acres  of  unprofitable  land  in  New  York  for  a 
full  section  of  the  Fox  River  prairie.  The  following 
year,  one  of  the  Fox  River  group  revisited  Norway, 
married,  and  succeeded  in  inducing  a  shipload  of 
families  to  accompany  him  on  the  return  voyage.    This 


THE  STATE  13 

incident  is  thoroughly  exemplificatory  of  Norwegian 
emigration  to  America  and  marks  its  beginning  as  a 
movement.  The  venture  of  "the  Sloopers"  had  been  a 
sporadic  exploit  partly  incited  by  religious  zeal.  That 
of  1836  was  an  organized  effort  and  was  so  successful 
that  an  overflow  ship  had  to  be  secured  and  actually 
preceded  the  returned  native  and  his  bridal  party  to 
America.  Hereafter,  each  year  brought  increase  of  sail- 
ings and  each  sailing  increased  the  eagerness  of  those 
left  behind  to  know  more  of  the  land  to  the  west.  At 
first,  information  was  scant.  One,  who  became  an  emi- 
grant leader,  had  his  imagination  lighted  up  by  a  Ger- 
man book,  entitled  Reisen  in  Amerika,  "found  in  a 
friend's  library  in  Bergen,"  winter  of  1836-37.  An- 
other's interest  was  aroused  by  reading  of  our  "excellent 
laws"  in  a  German  newspaper.  Each  return  from  Amer- 
ica was  a  signal  for  letters  and  visits  from  far  and  wide. 
In  1838,  as  the  result  of  such  besiegings,  America  be- 
came the  subject  of  two  pamphlets  by  returned  emi- 
grants, and,  in  1842-43,  of  a  considerable  book.  These 
printed  documents,  amusingly  enough,  carried  more 
weight  in  some  quarters  than  the  letters  and  personal 
accounts  of  friends.  After  a  few  years,  however,  the 
letters  home  began  to  contain  the  liveliest  of  all  argu- 
ments,— remittances  and  prepaid  tickets.  It  has  been 
estimated  that  fully  fifty  per  cent,  of  the  Norwegian 
immigrants  of  a  later  period  arrived  in  America  through 
such  means. 

It  was  in  the  spring  of  1839  that  a  party  of  Nor- 
wegians, sailing  from  Skien  to  New  York  and  thence 
passing  by  the  Erie  Canal  and  the  Great  Lakes,  landed 
in  Milwaukee,  bound  for  the  Illinois  settlement.  A 
sort  of  myth  exists  in  Norwegian-American  lore  to  the 
effect  that  a  citizen  of  the  bustling  frontier  village  di- 


14  WISCONSIN 

verted  them  from  their  destination  by  pointing  out  two 
men,  a  fat  and  an  ague-shaken  lean,  as  typical  effects, 
respectively,  of  residence  in  Wisconsin  and  Illinois.  The 
Fox  River  settlement  had  been  constantly  ravaged,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  by  malarial  fever,  the  chief  terror  of 
the  wilderness  to  newcomers.  Each  of  the  party,  for  the 
sum  of  fifty  dollars,  became  master  of  forty  acres  of 
land  at  Muskego  Lake,  about  fourteen  miles  inland  from 
Milwaukee,  and  here  was  established  the  first  Norwegian 
settlement  in  Wisconsin.  The  same  summer,  a  number 
of  the  Illinois  families  became  discontented  with  their 
malarial  surroundings  and  moved  up  the  Rock  River 
valley  into  Wisconsin.  The  same  year,  also,  a  party 
pushed  farther  up  Rock  River  and  located  claims  in  the 
beautifully  wooded  Koshkonong  region  of  Dane.  The 
settlement  founded  here  the  following  spring  (1840)  be- 
came for  a  time  "the  destination  of  pour-fifths  of  those 
who  emigrated  from  Norway."  By  1850  about  nine 
thousand,  one-half  the  total  Norwegian  population  of 
America,  had  taken  up  their  residence  in  Wisconsin.  A 
Norwegian  pastorate  had  gone  into  operation  at  Kosh- 
konong in  1844,  a  Norwegian  newspaper  at  Muskego  in 
1847,  and  the  movement  was  well  started  which  was  to 
make  the  Norwegians  an  element  to  be  reckoned  with  in 
the  social  history  of  Wisconsin. 

Opinions  have  differed  as  to  the  importance  to  be 
assigned  to  various  motives  in  the  promotion  of  Nor- 
wegian emigration.  The  latest  and  most  critical  writer  * 
on  the  subject  furnishes  good  reasons  for  supposing  the 
incentives  to  have  been  almost  exclusively  economic. 
America  was  to  the  Norse  emigrant,  first  of  all,  a  land 
of  material  advantages  and,  after  that,  of  social  oppor- 
tunity.   Whether  peasants  with  meager  returns  for  their 

1  Flom,  G.  T.,  Norwegian  Immigration  to  the  United  States. 


THE  STATE  15 

labor  or  younger  sons  without  prospect  of  estate,  they 
were  those  who  saw  no  promise  of  securing  a  foothold 
in  the  old  home  which  satisfied  their  material  ambitions 
and  their  desire  for  social  importance.  Notions  of  a 
loftier  spiritual  independence  in  a  fresher  world  no 
doubt  weighed  with  some.  Herein  they  did  not  essen- 
tially differ  from  the  average  of  our  native-born  pioneers. 
Since  most  of  them  had  but  scant  means  their  directest 
way  to  property  was  to  become  possessors  of  land.  As 
a  result,  the  immigrants  of  this  epoch  were  added  almost 
en  masse  to  the  agricultural  population. 

The  movement  toward  Wisconsin  had  not  yet  spent 
its  force,  and  the  material  development  of  the  state  was 
barely  indicated,  at  the  point  where  we  have  been  taking 
stock  of  its  constituents.  As  we  have  already  seen,  the 
annual  growth  in  population  from  1850  to  1855  was  to 
be  in  actual  numbers,  though  not  in  ratio,  greater  than 
in  any  preceding  period.  It  was  exceeded  by  that  from 
1855  to  1860.  Wisconsin  had  been  "put  on  the  map" 
at  just  the  proper  time  to  give  it  an  unprecedented  sud- 
denness of  development  and  stock  it  with  a  diversity  of 
population  hitherto  unparalleled  even  in  America.  The 
preliminary  exploitation  was  carried  on,  for  the  most 
part,  by  native  settlers,  many  of  them  waiting  at  the 
gate  when  the  lands  were  thrown  open.  A  few  foreigners 
straggled  in  during  the  late  thirties.  Then  the  rush  of 
the  native-born  in  the  forties  was  augmented  by  a  grad- 
ually increasing  stream  of  foreigners  which  became  a 
flood  in  1846  and  reached  high-water  mark  in  the  late 
fifties.  After  its  organization,  the  state  made  unrelaxing 
efforts  to  procure  settlers.  It  appointed  immigration 
agents  who  advertised  throughout  the  East  and  in  Eng- 
lish and  German  newspapers,  and  even  met  incoming 
vessels  at  the  seaboard,  land  charts  in  hand.    Its  officials, 


16  WISCONSIN 

with  dubious  probity,  threw  away  the  school  and  uni- 
versity grants  at  low  prices,  ostensibly  that  settlement 
might  suffer  no  check  for  want  of  bargains  in  land. 
Inventions  of  machinery  in  this  decade  stimulated  agri- 
culture and  made  its  pursuit  more  attractive.  An  in- 
vasion of  the  northern  pine-lands  poured  a  million  and 
a  quarter  a  year  into  the  arteries  of  the  state,  a  mere 
earnest  of  what  was  to  come.  Railroads  tapped  the 
interior,  giving  easier  access  to  settlers  and  promising 
an  easy  exchange  of  their  raw  products  for  the  com- 
modities of  civilization.  The  Wisconsin  pioneer,  mean- 
time, served  his  brief  but  exacting  peonage  to  the 
frontier. 

It  would  be  satisfying,  at  this  point,  to  draw  together 
the  congeries  of  peoples,  motives,  and  material  conditions 
which  we  have  hastily  sketched,  into  some  synthesis 
which  should  account  for  and  characterize  the  civiliza- 
tion they  were  to  produce.  So  ambitious  a  design  could 
scarcely  hope  for  success ;  at  the  same  time,  a  few  prin- 
ciples of  unity  and  certain  lineaments  of  character  are 
fairly  easy  to  discern.  It  will  not  be  exacted  that  such 
a  notice  shall  differentiate  Wisconsin  exclusively  from 
other  commonwealths  founded  under  similar  circum- 
stances. Rather,  the  fact  that  numerous  features  of  the 
young  western  state  were  accentuated  in  Wisconsin  is 
what  recommends  it  for  this  treatment.  Its  character 
was  less  unique  than  strikingly  illustrative  of  American 
state  building  at  this  epoch.  The  fact,  also,  that  the 
constituents  of  its  population  remained  in  about  the  same 
ratio  for  considerable  time  afterward,  makes  this  a  not 
unfavorable  stage  for  analysis. 

Wisconsin  was  seized  and  developed  by  a  breed 
of  hardy,  industrious,  and  ambitious  people  drawn 
from  northeastern  America  and  northwestern  Europe. 


THE  STATE  17 

Various  in  immediate  origin  and  superficial  customs, 
they  were  all  sired  under  northern  skies  and  had  many 
moral  traits  in  common.  One  of  these  was  energy  of 
purpose.  Of  the  five  hundred  and  fifty  odd  thousands 
of  people  in  Wisconsin  in  1855,  five  hundred  thousand 
were  there  by  individual  choice  or  family  agreement, 
and  not  by  chance  of  birth.  The  nature  of  the  choice 
was  significant,  and  the  more  so,  that  choice  was  abun- 
dant and  varied  in  America  at  that  moment.  This  was 
the  choice  of  men  willing  to  try  a  hazard  of  new  for- 
tunes, but  not  to  stake  all  on  a  spade  of  dirt.  The 
Wisconsin  wilderness  met  its  tamers  with  hardship,  not 
with  danger.  The  fortitude  which  outwears  the  one 
rather  than  the  daring  which  laughs  at  the  other  was 
the  temper  of  their  courage.  The  hopes  which  lured 
them  were  of  similar  quality.  Wisconsin  was  not  an 
Eldorado;  it  was  a  land  of  promise,  where  he  who  had 
given  hostages  to  fortune  might  expect,  by  diligence  and 
hardihood,  to  rear  a  home  and  accumulate  a  competence. 
The  spendthrift  and  the  adventurer  were  not  absent,  of 
course;  but,  in  the  average  of  things,  he  whose  dreams 
were  of  dazzling  riches  or  who  craved  excitement 
found  more  inviting  fields  in  the  farther  West.  Wis- 
consin selected  her  people  from  the  prudent  and  the 
bold. 

Such  qualities  were  confirmed  by  their  life,  which  was 
physical  and  fiercely  occupied  with  material  interests. 
They  had  need  of  physical  lustiness  and  concentration 
who,  in  these  few  years,  took  possession  of  a  wilderness 
and  made  it  a  land  of  homes.  Most  of  them  were  young 
or  in  the  prime  of  life  and  prodigal  of  their  force.  The 
members  of  the  first  constitutional  convention  averaged 
thirty-seven  years  of  age;  considerably  over  half  were 
farmers  and  three-fourths  were  men  that  worked  with 


18  WISCONSIN 

their  hands.  As  one  peruses  the  lives  of  individual 
pioneers  which  abound  in  the  local  histories,  he  is  struck 
with  the  frequent  mention  of  their  unusual  gifts  of 
bodily  strength  and  their  feats  of  endurance.  Yet  even 
in  the  manual  tasks  of  life  their  qualities  were  not 
merely  physical ;  to  hardiness  and  resolution,  the  pioneer 
must  add  skill  and  resourcefulness.  His  measure  of 
success  and  of  comfort  depended  on  his  being,  like  the 
later  general  farmer,  but  in  a  greater  degree,  a  jack-at- 
all-trades.  Handy  with  ax  and  saw,  at  the  forge,  with 
rod  and  gun ;  patient  behind  the  plow  and  the  long  line 
of  oxen;  capable  of  swinging  a  cradle  all  day  through 
the  sagging  wheat,  or  wielding  a  flail  deep  into  the 
winter  night;  breakers  of  horses  and  oxen,  farriers, 
tinkers,  butchers  of  hogs  and  sheep,  breakers  and  layers 
of  stone,  uprooters  of  trees,  builders  of  roads  and  houses ; 
learned  in  the  whole  basic  lore  of  material  existence, 
powerful  and  versatile  and  indefatigable — there  was  no 
limit  to  the  variety  or  the  extent  of  their  tasks.  The 
women  were  equally  hardy,  capable,  and  devoted. 
Bearers,  each,  of  five  to  seven  children,  they  were  their 
own  servants,  minded  their  own  poultry,  set  and 
skimmed  their  milk,  churned,  worked  their  butter,  fol- 
lowed the  butchering  with  prodigious  epochs  of  sausage, 
souse,  head-cheese,  lard,  and  soft-soap ;  must  tend  the 
garden  if  there  was  to  be  one ;  clothed  their  children ; 
cooked,  washed,  scoured;  mended  and  darned  the  whole 
family,  and,  if  sufficiently  forehanded,  got  everybody  to 
church,  if  there  was  one,  on  Sunday.  Among  the  for- 
eign born  peasants,  all  these  tasks  were  reduced  to  a 
minimum,  and  the  women  joined  the  men  in  the  fields. 
It  is  to  be  remembered,  finally,  that  these  were  not  the 
down-trodden  poor,  but  the  ladies  of  the  land,  who 
wrought  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  their  mates  and,  in 


THE  STATE  19 

due  time,  came  with  them  into  an  equal  heritage  of 
comfort,  respectability,  and  education. 

For,  from  the  moment  of  its  real  development,  it  was 
a  mixed  society  in  which  men  and  women  bore  equally 
the  burdens  of  life.  In  the  early  territorial  days  and 
down  to  about  1840,  a  large  share  of  the  settlers  had 
been  males.  After  that,  most  of  them  came  with  full 
impedimenta;  or,  they  came  alone,  cruised  about  the 
woods  until  they  found,  beside  some  spring  or  in  some 
oak  clearing,  the  spot  they  wanted,  crashed  their  axes 
into  the  forest  monarchs  for  a  few  sweatf ul  days,  hastily 
squared  up  a  cabin,  and  went  back  for  their  families. 
By  1850,  there  were  nearly  as  many  women  as  men  in 
the  state.  In  the  average  hundred  of  the  native  born 
settlers  only  four  males  would  have  been  unpaired  by 
a  female ;  while  among  the  foreign  born,  the  overrun  of 
males  would  have  amounted  to  eight.  During  the  next 
twenty  years,  four  hundred  thousand  children  were  born 
in  the  state.  So  quickly  had  Wisconsin  assumed  this 
aspect  of  settled  society. 

It  was,  then,  a  society  of  independents  and  of  pro- 
ducers, where  to  be  idle  was  to  be  intolerable  and  almost 
to  be  incredible.  For  not  only  did  everyone  work,  but 
almost  everyone  worked  with  his  hands  and  almost  every- 
one worked  for  himself.  In  1850,  against  40,000  general 
farmers,  there  were  but  11,000  unattached  laborers  and 
about  6,000  artisans,  as  carpenters,  coopers,  smiths. 
There  were  3,000  miners  and  1,500  employed  in  lumber- 
ing. Against  all  these  and  their  families  there  were  but 
1,200  merchants,  who  did  not  average  a  clerk  apiece,  and 
there  were  only  two  banks  in  the  entire  state.  There  was 
a  provision  of  one  tailor  to  beautify  each  414  of  the 
population,  and  for  every  thousand  people,  there  were 
not  quite  two  doctors,  a  lawyer  and  a  half,  a  clergyman 


20  WISCONSIN 

and  a  third,  and  two-thirds  of  a  male  teacher.  Most  of 
the  teachers,  of  course,  were  women.  There  were  six 
daily  newspapers,  four  that  appeared  twice  or  thrice  a 
week,  thirty-five  weeklies,  and  one  monthly.  Of  these, 
one  was  printed  in  the  Norwegian,  and  two  in  the  Ger- 
man language.  There  were  seventy-two  public  libraries 
containing  a  total  of  21,020  volumes,  or  one-fifteenth  of 
a  book  for  each  inhabitant.  At  the  same  time  the  number 
of  those  who  could  not  read  at  all  was  relatively  small. 
The  percentage  of  illiterates  over  twenty  years  of  age 
was  rather  less  than  that  of  Michigan  and  considerably 
less  than  that  of  Iowa,  and  the  conditions  of  their  dis- 
tribution between  foreign  and  native  born  were  reversed 
as  compared  with  those  two  states.  Of  Michigan's  il- 
literates, five-eighths,  and  of  Iowa's  seven-eighths  were 
native  born;  over  two-thirds  of  Wisconsin's  illiterates 
were  foreigners, — a  difference  not  counterbalanced  by  the 
greater  number  of  foreigners  in  Wisconsin.  Measured 
by  this  thermometer  of  intelligence  Wisconsin's  popula- 
tion was  superior  to  that  of  either  of  her  neighbors. 

We  have  before  us  the  picture  of  a  busy,  successful, 
domestically  and  materially  minded  people.  The  in- 
stinct which  they  developed  toward  the  social  scheme 
was  that  which  might  be  expected  from  the  process  of 
their  selection  and  from  their  habit  of  life.  They  were 
of  the  class  who  possess  a  cool-blooded  detachment  from 
the  established  order  of  things,  neither  blindly  loyal  nor 
frantically  hostile  to  it.  Clear-eyed  toward  substantial 
realities,  skeptical  of  tradition  and  scornful  of  super- 
stition, loving  independence,  self-confident,  eupeptic,  un- 
sensitive  in  a  whole  group  of  perceptions  and  sentiments, 
it  must  have  been  that  the  tentacles  of  organized  society 
found  less  to  take  hold  of  in  them  than  in  their  fellows 
who  stayed  at  home.  To  their  minds,  looking  forward  and 


THE  STATE  21 

not  back,  the  superior  social,  intellectual,  and  artistic 
surroundings,  the  associations  and  habitudes,  and  every 
relaxing  tenderness  of  the  old  home,  were  well  exchanged 
for  a  life  of  struggle,  gain,  and  independence  in  a  new 
place.  We  do  not  forget,  indeed,  that,  in  many  cases, 
emigration  was  a  flight  from  actual  want;  we  speak  of 
averages.  The  sobriety  of  their  aims,  however,  is  suf- 
ficient indication  that  they  were  derived  from  the  liberal, 
not  from  the  lawless  elements  of  the  older  societies.  Here 
and  there,  as  some  precipitancy  of  material  development 
flashed  dizzying  glimpses  of  fortune,  the  rapacities  were 
unleashed  and  there  were  stampedes  of  dishonesty  and 
corruption  in  private  business  and  the  public  service. 
But  the  thriftiness  of  the  general  ambition  always  rein- 
forced the  common  conscience  to  curb  license  and  re- 
establish integrity,  in  public  affairs  at  least. 

Although  their  chief  object  was  to  mend  their  fortunes, 
the  Wisconsin  settlers  came  in  the  firm  expectation  of 
political  justice  and  social  equality.  Intensity  of  public 
spirit  varied,  as  we  have  seen,  among  the  different 
groups.  It  varied  greatly  among  individuals ;  but  there 
can  have  been  few,  native  or  foreign,  without  some  echo 
in  their  spirits  of  the  emancipations  with  which  the 
world  was  ringing.  Our  native  settlers  had  little  reason 
to  feel  passion  or  mistrust  on  the  score  of  political  liberty. 
These  had  been  forestalled  by  an  instrument  two  years 
older  than  the  national  constitution  itself.  "Our  na- 
tional guarantee  of  personal  freedom,  universal  educa- 
tion, and  religious  liberty,  found  their  first  expression 
in  the  great  act  which  provided  for  the  Government  of 
the  Northwest. ' '  J  There  had  been  a  recent  reconstitu- 
tioning  among  states  from  which  Wisconsin  drew  largely, 
and  the  framers  of  her  government,  with  no  lack  of 

1  W.  F.  Allen,  Place  of  the  Northwest  in  History. 


22  WISCONSIN 

models,  took  care  that  it  should  have  the  latest  improve- 
ments. The  foreign  element  arrived  too  late  to  take 
much  hand  in  the  organization  of  the  state;  but  those 
who  were  on  the  ground,  mostly  Irishmen  and  Germans, 
worked  hard  for  the  clause  conferring  immediate  politi- 
cal rights  on  aliens.  Against  the  prejudice  of  that  Know- 
nothing  period  abstract  justice  could  not  have  prevailed 
had  it  not  been  reinforced  by  a  motive  of  expediency, 
that  of  hastening  the  material  development  of  the  state. 
But  economic  conditions  produced  a  far  more  im- 
portant effect  upon  the  status  of  the  foreign  groups  in 
Wisconsin  than  was  involved  in  the  permission  to  vote 
within  a  year.  The  foreign  settlers  entered  at  once  upon 
a  material  equality  which  was  destined  to  bring  all  others 
in  its  train.  Democracy  may  be  a  paradox,  or  it  may  be 
a  truth ;  an  institutional  figment  or  a  fact.  In  the 
Wisconsin  of  this  period  economic  conditions  made  it  a 
fact.  Where  all  were  established  side  by  side  upon  the 
land,  with  the  prosperity  of  each  dependent  upon  his 
own  diligence  and  cunning,  lines  of  nationality  were  soon 
blurred  and,  in  some  cases,  were  virtually  erased  in  a 
generation.  The  situation  of  the  foreign  settlers  of  Wis- 
consin was  as  different  as  possible  from  that  of  the  later 
accretions  in  the  East  and  Far  West,  or  in  Wisconsin 
itself  to  a  less  degree.  When  divisions  of  nationality 
fall  in  with  economic  stratifications,  slips  and  chasms  are 
produced  in  the  social  structure  which  jeer  at  democracy. 
In  Wisconsin,  at  first  the  polaric  tendency  among  social 
groups  based  on  differences  of  language,  customs,  and 
religion,  was  accentuated  by  their  practice  of  establishing 
themselves  geographically  as  units.  Some  of  the  groups 
maintained  their  identity  fairly  intact  for  a  generation ; 
but  under  stress  of  pioneer  conditions  such  differences 
attached  them  the  more  securely  to  their  common  politi- 


THE  STATE  23 

cal  organization  as  the  bulwark  of  their  mutual  fortunes, 
and  tended  to  magnify  the  functions  of  the  state.  They 
were,  indeed,  quite  conscious  that  political  equality  was 
only  the  means  by  which  they  were  to  secure  for  them- 
selves the  blessings  of  an  orderly  and  progressive  civili- 
zation. The  ringing  message  which  Governor  Nelson 
Dewey  presented  to  the  first  legislature  is  remarkably 
clear  on  this  point. 

"Our  people,  impelled  by  the  spirit  of  adventure  and 
enterprise  in  our  own  country  or  driven  by  the  hand 
of  oppression  from  foreign  lands,  have  cast  themselves 
upon  the  soil  of  Wisconsin  as  their  adopted  home,  to 
secure  that  social  and  political  equality  so  necessary  to 
true  happiness  and  prosperity.  Possessing  common  in- 
terests and  having  common  objects  to  accomplish,  may 
the  onward  course  of  our  people  to  the  goal  of  their 
aspirations  be  unobstructed,  and  nothing  occur  to  inter- 
rupt their  united  and  harmonious  action.  .  .  .  Equality 
is  the  basis  of  our  free  institutions,  and  the  true  policy 
is,  so  far  as  possible,  by  proper  and  judicious  legislation, 
to  produce  that  equality,  as  well  social  and  intellectual, 
as  political."1 

This  message  has  something  of  the  virtue  of  prophecy. 
In  Wisconsin,  happily,  with  all  its  diversity  of  peoples, 
the  influences  here  invoked  were  destined  to  work  with 
unusual  effectiveness.  It  became  a  theater  for  the  evolu- 
tion of  that  "progressive  democracy"  upon  which  it  has 
been  so  frequently  congratulated  and  upon  which,  with 
something  of  the  breeziness  of  its  founders  perhaps,  it 
so  freely  congratulates  itself.  But,  bragging  aside,  its 
early  conditions  were  such  as  to  encourage  these  doc- 
trines. With  economic  equality  and  relative  unity  of 
economic  interest,  the  social  cleavage  gradually  disap- 

1  Senate  Journal,   1848,  App.  2,  pp.  10  and  12. 


24  WISCONSIN 

pears;  the  groups  touch,  knit,  and  move  as  one  toward 
the  universal  welfare,  forward. 

"Forward";  this  was  the  word  chosen  for  the  scroll 
of  honor  upon  the  great  seal  of  the  state.  The  word  had 
a  timely  virtue.  World-wide,  the  Zeitgeist  lent  it  force. 
The  last  words  of  Goethe's  Faust,  the  philosophies  and 
revolutions  of  France,  of  Europe  for  that  matter,  the 
mechanical  triumphs  of  the  age,  the  trend  of  biological 
science  toward  evolutionary  hypotheses  soon  to  be  for- 
mulated in  the  works  of  Darwin,  such  recent  English 
phrasings  as  the  last  great  speech  in  Browning's  Para- 
celsus, "progress  is  the  law  of  life,  man  is  not  Man  as 
yet  .  .  .,"  and  the  culminating  passage,  declaimed  by 
every  schoolboy,  of  Tennyson's  Locksley  Hall,  "For- 
ward, forward  let  us  range,  Let  the  great  world  spin 
forever  down  the  ringing  grooves  of  change," — all  com- 
bined to  give  to  that  idea  of  progress  which  had  been 
growing  on  the  world  since  French  Revolution  days  a 
currency  and  a  breadth  and  novelty  of  expression  that 
made  of  it  virtually  a  new  conception,  a  sudden,  thrill- 
ing world-discovery. 

The  sense  of  flux  was  nowhere  so  phenomenal,  in  both 
senses  of  the  word,  as  here  in  America,  and  most  of  all 
on  the  frontier.  States  filling  up  in  a  decade  with  the 
world's  restless  peoples,  a  wilderness  parceled  into 
farms,  logs  giving  way  to  boards,  wood  to  steel,  the 
crawling  ox-train  to  the  rushing  locomotive,  and  cities 
rising  like  an  exhalation,  feelingly  persuaded  that  civi- 
lization is  a  protean  thing  and  imposed  the  mental  habit 
of  expecting  tomorrow  to  be  more  than  today.  The  pro- 
cession of  material  successes,  the  confident  expectation 
of  great  things,  the  widespread  faith  in  the  efficacy  of 
political  action  to  take  care  of  all  the  concerns  of  life, 
promoted  that  highly  stimulated  utterance  which  has 


THE  STATE  25 

come  to  be  known  as  "American  brag."  At  the  same 
time,  one  marks  in  the  habitual  speech  of  pioneer  days 
the  pomp  and  sweep  of  something  more  than  self- 
congratulation,  a  constructive  zest  worthy  of  the  builders 
of  a  state.  In  the  records  of  the  Old  Settlers'  Reunions 
at  a  later  time,  as  in  the  broad-blown  effusions  of  early 
politicians  and  educators,  one  detects,  at  the  back  of  the 
wind,  a  remarkable  feeling  of  esprit  de  corps,  the  sense 
of  unity  in  a  vast  design. 

This  stir  of  material  progress  and  the  magnitude  of 
scale  in  all  its  operations  begot  a  social  tone  in  the  West, 
and  the  equal  mingling  of  people  of  many  nations  and 
denominations  and  of  both  sexes  begot  a  catholicity  of 
views  and  sentiments  which  were  to  produce  a  new  school 
of  manners.  There  came  to  be  a  liberality,  a  frankness, 
and  a  magnanimity  in  all  the  social  contacts  of  life 
unlike  that  which  any  single  element  had  known  in 
earlier  surroundings.  What  the  West  called  doing  things 
"in  a  large  way"  had  its  effect  upon  the  very  operations 
of  the  mind.  There  used  to  be  a  rustic  pleasantry  very 
freely  circulated  in  regard  to  a  certain  sect  which  had 
preserved  most  of  the  characteristics  of  its  contracted 
sectarian  life  upon  the  "one-horse"  perpendicular  farms 
in  an  eastern  state.  The  gentiles  were  wont  to  say  of  them 
that  they  were  "so  narrow  minded,  six  of  them  could 
sit  side  by  side  on  the  same  buggy  seat."  Such  a  spirit 
barely  survived  a  generation  on  the  broad  farms,  in  the 
mixed  societies,  and  under  the  secularizing  influences  of 
the  western  up  and  onward  spirit.  Irish  and  German 
Catholics,  German  and  Norwegian  Lutherans,  English 
and  German  Methodists,  English  and  American  Episco- 
palians, New  York  and  New  England  sects  of  every  creed 
and  practice,  sometimes  compelled  to  join  in  one  con- 
gregation, while  they  had  their  spiteful  jars,  were  never- 


26  WISCONSIN 

theless,  liberalized  together  in  the  free  air  of  the  frontier. 
The  Germans  with  their  love  of  music,  their  singing 
societies,  their  Sunday  festivals,  their  beer  and  Gemuth- 
lichkeit,  overwhelmed  in  a  generation  much  of  the  nar- 
row sectarian  prejudice  of  New  England  Puritans  and 
Scotch  Presbyterians,  the  grim  holidays  taken,  as  Lowell 
said,  "like  a  redoubt,"  the  sour  Sundays,  and  the  gen- 
erally joyless  creed  of  life. 

I  know  it  has  been  said  that  this  enthusiasm  for  im- 
pressive material  spectacles  and  this  freedom  from  social 
restraints  and  conventionalities  must  tend  to  create  an 
external  conception  of  progress  and  a  vulgar  test  of 
social  values,  and  such  was,  to  a  certain  degree,  the 
result.  The  inclination  of  the  frontier  has  been,  without 
doubt  more  than  elsewhere,  to  rank  expansiveness  higher 
than  intensity;  to  admire  force  and  pace  at  the  expense 
of  refinement  and  poise ;  to  let  voracity  blunt  discrimina- 
tion; to  respond  to  growth  in  size,  be  apathetic  to  im- 
provement in  essence;  to  make  a  god  of  acceleration. 
The  driving,  thriving  spirit  which  pervaded  the  advance 
regiments  of  civilization  could  not  but  produce  a  char- 
acter more  eager  than  profound,  more  fertile  in  expedi- 
ents than  distinguished  in  reflection,  too  impatient  for 
results  to  be  critical  of  means,  and  wiser  in  the  use  of 
its  energy  than  of  its  leisure.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
world  has  never  seen  so  much  energy,  so  alert  an  intelli- 
gence, and  so  broad  and  sane  a  purpose  brought  to  the 
conquest  of  nature, — nor  a  vanguard  that  recovered  with 
greater  alacrity  from  the  first  shocks  of  primeval  con- 
tact. 

It  may  be  justly  urged  that  many  of  the  foregoing 
traits  are  rather  national  than  specific  in  their  applica- 
tion. And  indeed,  it  is  true  that  Wisconsin  at  the  mo- 
ment of  its  organization  is  more  significant  for  typical 


THE  STATE  27 

than  for  unique  characteristics.  Probably  its  early  life 
was  too  swift  and  miscellaneous  to  be  intensely  origina- 
tive ;  but  it  was  immensely  acquisitive.  At  first  glance, 
there  is  little  to  distinguish  it  from  half  a  dozen  western 
commonwealths  that  took  shape  under  much  the  same 
conditions.  And  yet,  though  scarcely  a  line  in  its  por- 
trait is  wanting  from  the  likeness  of  some  sister  state, 
there  is  an  emphasis  of  shading  which  brings  out  its 
features  in  so  pronounced  a  way  as  to  make  it  almost 
the  idealization  of  mid-century,  mid-continent  state 
building.  This  is  perhaps  equivalent  to  saying  that  it 
is  medially  and  typically  American.  In  its  balance  of 
material  interests,  in  the  timing  and  swiftness  of  its  early 
development  and  its  accumulation  of  peoples,  in  the  do- 
mestic sobriety  and  energic  resolution  with  which  it  ad- 
dressed itself  to  material  tasks,  in  its  actual  democracy, 
its  faith  in  progress,  its  very  limitations  of  character  and 
culture,  and  finally,  in  those  relations  between  the  state 
and  universal  education  which  lie  ahead  of  us,  it  deserves 
to  be  rated,  not  indeed  as  the  greatest,  but  surely  as 
one  of  the  most  representative  of  American  common- 
wealths. 


II 

ANNIVERSARIES  AND  ORIGINS 

A  bill  to  establish  a  university  at  the  "City  of  the 
Four  Lakes,"  was  introduced  into  the  Wisconsin  ter- 
ritorial legislature,  December  27,  1837.  This  was 
amended  in  the  Council,  or  upper  house,  so  as  to  read 
"there  shall  be  established  at  or  near  Madison,  the  seat 
of  government,  a  University  for  the  purpose  of  educating 
youth,  the  name  whereof  shall  be  'the  University  of  the 
Territory  of  Wisconsin.'  "  In  this  form  the  act  repassed 
the  House  and  was  approved  by  Governor  Henry  Dodge 
on  January  19,  1838.  A  congressional  grant  of  two 
townships  of  land  from  that  part  of  the  public  domain 
lying  within  the  limits  of  the  territory,  which  it  was 
stipulated  should  be  "for  the  use  and  support  of  a  Uni- 
versity," "and  for  no  other  purpose  whatsoever,"  passed 
under  the  hand  of  President  Van  Buren  on  the  twelfth  of 
June,  the  same  year.  Except  for  the  selection  of  its 
lands,  which  began  in  1840,  was  completed  in  the  terri- 
torial period,  and  was  well  made,  the  university  then 
paused  for  ten  years.  The  enabling  act  of  1846  con- 
firmed the  university  grant  and  a  clause  of  the  state  con- 
stitution, approved  by  the  people  in  March,  1848,  pro- 
vided "for  the  establishment  of  a  state  university  at  or 
near  the  seat  of  state  government,  and  for  connecting 
with  the  same  from  time  to  time  such  colleges  in  dif- 
ferent parts  of  the  state  as  the  interests  of  education" 
might  require.  This  provision  was  carried  as  a  part  of 
the  statehood  bill  which  received  its  final  sanction  from 

28 


Edward  A.  Birge 

From  the  painting  by  Christian  Abrahamson 


ANNIVERSARIES  AND  ORIGINS  29 

the  pen  of  President  Polk,  May  29,  1848.  In  his  in- 
augural message  delivered  June  8,  Governor  Nelson 
Dewey  referred  "to  the  wisdom  of  the  legislature  the 
question  of  the  expediency"  of  arranging  at  once  for 
the  sale  of  the  university  lands.  An  act  incorporating 
the  university  and  vesting  its  government  in  a  board  of 
regents  received  his  approval  July  26,  1848.  The  same 
legislature  that  created  the  university  provided  for  the 
appraisal  of  its  lands,,  and  the  next  year  (1849)  for  their 
sale  and  for  the  management  of  the  university  fund. 
The  board  of  regents  held  its  first  meeting  October  7, 
1848.  At  this  time  were  elected  the  first  professor,  John 
W.  Sterling,  who  served  the  university  for  thirty-five 
years,  and  the  first  chancellor,  John  H.  Lathrop,  who 
served  ten  years.  The  purchase  of  a  campus  site  was 
authorized  January  16,  1849. 

On  February  5,  1849,1  in  a  room  temporarily  provided 
for  the  purpose  by  the  citizens  of  Madison,  Professor 
Sterling  enrolled  a  preparatory  class  of  seventeen  mem- 
bers which  soon  increased  to  twenty, — the  first  "univer- 
sity students."  The  chancellor  notified  the  board  of  his 
acceptance  in  March,  arriving  the  following  October, 

1  In  regard  to  this  date  there  has  been  some  confusion.  The 
date  given  above  is  amply  supported  by  notices  in  contemporary 
newspapers  as  well  as  by  the  manuscript  records  of  the  board 
of  regents.  The  statements  in  Thwaites'  University  of  Wisconsin 
(1),  p  58,  that  the  mention  of  the  presence  of  students  at  the 
inauguration  of  Chancellor  Lathrop  (Jan  16,  1850 1  "was  a 
stretch  of  reportorial  fancy"  with  what  follows,  and  (2),  the 
legend  "occupied  by  the  State  University,  1850-51,"  sub-pended 
to  the  view  of  the  Madison  Female  College,  p  53  (so  far  as  it 
implies  that  the  building  was  not  so  occupied  earlier),  are  erron- 
eous. The  same  error  appears  in  the  Preface.  The  statement  in 
the  same  place  that  the  Milwaukee  Sentinel  "had  no  correspon- 
dent on  the  grounds "  is  equally  incorrect  Gen  Rufus  King, 
editor  of  the  Sentinel,  was  present  in  person,  being  a  member  of 
the  board  of  regents  Brief  notices  of  the  inauguration  appeared 
in  the  issues  of  January  17  and  January  18,  and  a  full  account, 
evidently  from  the  pen  of  General  King,  appeared  January  19. 


30  WISCONSIN 

formally  assumed  the  chairmanship  of  the  board  of 
regents  November  21,  and  was  inaugurated  with  full 
ceremonies  on  the  morning  of  January  16, 1850. 

A  detailed  plan  for  grounds  and  buildings  was  adopted 
on  the  afternoon  of  Chancellor  Lathrop's  inauguration. 
North  Hall,  known  at  first  as  North  Middle,  a  little  later, 
as  North  College,  and  still  later  as  "the  North  Dormi- 
tory," was  opened  to  students  September  17,  1851,  and 
was  officially  accepted  by  the  building  committee  on  the 
eleventh  day  of  October,  following.  The  first  college 
class,  consisting  of  three  members  was  formed  in  the 
autumn  of  1850.  On  July  26,  1854,  the  first  bacca- 
laureates were  conferred  upon  Levi  Booth  of  Madison 
and  Charles  T.  Wakeley  of  Whitewater,  members  both 
of  Professor  Sterling's  first  class. 

Upon  Levi  Booth,  alphabetical  priority  over  his  class- 
mate has  conferred  the  distinction  of  being  remembered 
as  the  first  graduate  of  the  university.  In  the  same 
sense,  he  was  its  first  student ;  for  his  name  heads  Pro- 
fessor Sterling's  earliest  roll.  This  venerable  alumnus 
died  six  years  ago.  Shortly  after  graduation  he  had 
moved  onward  to  the  farther  west.  His  death,  at  the  age 
of  eighty-three,  occurred  in  Denver,  Colorado,  December 
27,  1912.  It  fell  on  the  seventy-fifth  anniversary  of  the 
introduction  of  the  first  university  act  in  the  territorial 
legislature.  Thus  the  complete  university  cycle  lies 
almost  within  the  span  of  life  of  its  first  alumnus. 

This  brief  chronology  of  the  first  steps  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Wisconsin  paves  the  way  for  a  clear  indication 
of  its  position  in  state  university  annals.  The  incidents 
which  have  attended  the  development  of  higher  educa- 
tion under  state  patronage  in  Wisconsin  are  illustrative 
of  what  has  gone  on  in  a  score  of  American  states  during 
these  seventy-five  years.    While  there  is  not  wanting  the 


ANNIVERSARIES  AND  ORIGINS  31 

picturesqueness  of  individual  adventure,  the  story  of  the 
university's  struggles  and  ultimate  victory  will  contain, 
for  many,  the  more  pregnant  interest  which  attaches  to 
a  type.  Its  geographic  and  historical  position  have  been 
such  as  to  give  it  considerable  consequence  from  this 
point  of  view.  Even  if  this  were  not  so,  it  would  be 
desirable  to  view  the  history  of  the  university,  to  a  cer- 
tain extent,  with  reference  to  events  elsewhere.  Not  to 
recognize  these  wider  relations  is  to  understand  events 
imperfectly  and  frequently  to  be  betrayed  into  injustice. 
It  will  be  advantageous  then,  to  review,  as  summarily  as 
the  subject  will  allow,  the  origin  and  nature  of  the  state 
university  idea. 

The  history  of  the  state  universities  is  usually  held  to 
begin  with  the  Ordinance  of  1787.  This  celebrated  cove- 
nant was  a  formulation  of  the  principles  which  were  to 
regulate  relations  between  the  Northwest  Territory  and 
the  original  federation  of  states.  It  took  form  on  the 
occasion  of  a  sale  of  lands  by  the  national  government 
to  a  group  of  prospective  colonists  known  as  the  Ohio 
Company.  Ratified  by  the  first  Congress  under  the  con- 
stitution, the  Ordinance  came  to  be  recognized  as  the 
palladium  of  civil  rights  for  all  the  territory  "north  of 
the  Ohio  River."  Among  its  assurances  was  that  con- 
tained in  the  oft-quoted  clause  respecting  education: 
"Religion,  morality  and  knowledge  being  necessary  to 
good  government  and  the  happiness  of  mankind,  schools 
and  the  means  of  education  shall  forever  be  encouraged." 

There  is  no  explicit  reference  to  higher  education  in 
the  clause ;  but  in  the  negotiations  between  Congress  and 
the  leaders  of  the  Ohio  Company  it  was  agreed,  not  only 
that  the  sixteenth  section  in  every  township  of  the  pros- 
pective state  should  be  donated  for  the  support  of  schools 
(all  that  Congress,  at  first,  was  disposed  to  allow),  but 


32  WISCONSIN 

that  two  full  townships  of  the  public  domain  should  be 
set  aside  for  the  endowment  of  seminaries  of  learning. 
The  succinct  statement  of  the  relations  between  educa- 
tion and  government  included  in  the  Ordinance  and  the 
interpretation  of  this  statement  in  terms  of  public  land 
were  stipulations  of  the  representatives  of  the  Ohio  Com- 
pany. Furthermore,  this  disposition  of  portions  of  the 
domain  which  Congress  held  in  trust  for  the  nation  was 
justified  by  Congress  itself  on  the  ground  that  it  would 
increase  the  value  of  the  remainder  by  rendering  it  more 
attractive  to  colonists.  Therefore,  the  first  federal  grant 
of  land  for  the  encouragement  of  higher  education  in  the 
Northwest  Territory  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  concession  to 
demands  of  the  settlers  themselves.  When,  during  Jef- 
ferson's first  administration,  Ohio  was  admitted  to  state- 
hood, its  educational  grants  were  confirmed  and  the  lands 
were  transferred  to  the  state.  Thereafter,  the  policy  was 
continued  toward  each  successive  unit  of  the  Northwest 
upon  its  organization  as  a  territory,  and,  before  the 
organization  of  the  Northwest  was  completed,  the  pre- 
cedent had  been  extended  to  the  regions  beyond  the  Mis- 
sissippi. In  brief,  the  dedication  of  a  fixed  portion  of 
the  public  domain  to  the  encouragement  of  higher  educa- 
tion became  one  of  the  stereotyped  inducements  offered 
by  the  nation  to  settlers  upon  its  unoccupied  lands. 

Almost  by  accident  the  national  government  had 
entered  upon  a  course  of  action  which,  grafted  upon 
other  conditions  of  the  frontier,  was  to  yield  a  unique 
institution, — the  American  State  University.  The  idea 
of  a  state  university  as  we  now  comprehend  it.  includes 
characteristics  which  may  be  fairly  systematized  under 
three  heads :  centrality,  universality,  secularity.  By  the 
term  centrality  it  is  meant  that  all  the  state's  activities 
in  superior  education  shall  be  administered  under  one 


ANNIVERSARIES  AND  ORIGINS  33 

organization  in  immediate  relation,  as  to  support  and 
responsibility,  with  the  state  government  and  as  far  as 
possible  at  one  place.  This  need  not  be  taken  to  preclude 
privately  supported  auxiliaries  to  higher  education ;  but 
it  should  preclude  any  weakening  of  the  state 's  functions 
through  such  agencies.  The  second  term  embraces  two 
conceptions:  first,  that  the  state  institution  shall  provide 
the  highest  available  instruction  in  all  departments  of 
knowledge,  both  fundamental  and  applied,  with  the  pres- 
sure upon  the  confines  of  knowledge  which  such  instruc- 
tion implies;  second,  that  it  shall  serve  as  widely  as 
possible  the  entire  scientific  interest  of  the  state,  opening 
its  advantages  to  all  who  are  prepared  to  profit  by  them. 
The  term  secularity  has  to  do  with  the  tone  of  the  uni- 
versity's intellectual  life.  It  may  be  taken  to  apply,  not 
only  to  the  absence  of  sectarian  bias  in  religious  teaching 
as  it  was  understood  by  the  older  generation,  but  also  to 
the  absence  of  that  brahminism  in  education  which  for- 
merly limited  its  functions  to  the  training  of  a  select 
body  of  dogmatic  leaders  grounded  in  a  peculiar  disci- 
pline or  culture, — linguistic,  philosophical,  or  the  like. 
This  Minerva  did  not  spring  full-armed  from  the  brain 
of  any  single  Jove. 

The  doctrine  implied  in  the  Ordinance  of  1787,  that 
education  is  a  function  of  state  because  "necessary  to 
good  government"  is  now  so  familiar  as  to  seem  hack- 
neyed. It  was  in  harmony  with  the  opinions  of  the  most 
enlightened  leaders  of  the  constitutional  period.  That  it 
applied  to  the  common  schools,  whose  advantages  were 
available  to  every  citizen,  was  easily  conceded.  To  gain 
wide  assent  to  the  same  doctrine  in  the  other  ranges  of 
education  was  not  so  simple,  and  to  awaken  interest  and 
persuade  to  action  was  hard  indeed.  So,  though  a  firm 
logic  underlies  this  conception  of  a  university 's  place  in 


34  WISCONSIN 

a  democracy,  it  was  not  soon  realized  in  institutions. 
Superstitions  long  dominant  had  to  be  scattered. 
Forces  long  scattered  through  the  separation  of  church 
and  state  and  the  growth  of  sects  had  to  be  assembled 
under  a  new  democratic  ideal.  This  was  not  accom- 
plished by  a  single  political  action  nor  yet  in  a  single 
generation.  Experiment  and  failure  preceded  success; 
the  logic  of  events  reinforced  abstract  theory.  Emerging 
in  the  era  of  political  clarification  following  the  war  for 
independence,  the  idea  was  thrown  for  its  life  among 
the  harsh  conditions  of  the  frontier.  There  alone  did  it 
find  a  relatively  clear  field  for  its  development,  though 
the  obstacles  it  encountered  were  formidable.  It  was 
not  until  after  the  Civil  War  that  the  state  universities, 
as  a  class,  enjoyed  any  considerable  prosperity.  The 
year  1867,  a  glance  at  the  chronologies  will  show,  was 
the  annus  mirabilis  in  their  history;  while  the  lustrum 
1865-70  was  packed  with  momentous  origins.  Conceived 
in  the  dawn  of  national  consciousness  following  the 
Revolution,  the  universities  gathered  their  first  strength 
in  the  period  of  reorganization  which  succeeded  our 
other  great  national  convulsion. 

There  was  at  first  no  well-defined  idea  of  a  strong 
central  institution  for  the  state.  Government  aid  to  in- 
stitutions of  learning,  whether  by  direct  appropriation, 
special  taxes,  or  grants  of  land,  was  not  a  novelty ;  such 
aid  had  been  given  sporadically  since  colonial  days. 
However,  these  instances  had  failed  to  develop  into  sys- 
tematic support  and  had  not  involved  centralization  or 
permanent  responsibility  of  the  institutions  toward  the 
state.  It  is  true,  Jefferson's  plans  for  a  university,  sub- 
mitted to  the  Virginia  legislature  as  early  as  1817,  antici- 
pated the  main  features  of  the  modern  state  institution. 
The  University  of  Virginia,  organized  shortly  after,  fur- 


ANNIVERSARIES  AND  ORIGINS  35 

nished  a  clear-cut  example  of  annual  state  aid,  on  a 
small  scale,  and  of  a  central  institution  responsible  to 
the  state.  But  Virginia  was  founded  at  least  partly 
by  private  subscription  and  Jefferson 's  outline  remained 
in  large  measure  unactualized.  Virginia  was  relatively 
remote  and  was  in  actuality  a  rather  feeble  prototype. 
Its  influence  can  hardly  have  been  very  potent  except 
in  Kentucky,  and  there  the  university  idea,  though  it 
persisted  for  a  time,  failed  to  make  permanent  head 
against  the  obstacles  which  everywhere  barred  its  prog- 
ress. Illustrious  from  the  standpoint  of  the  Northwest 
was  the  example  of  New  York,  where  a  generous  "liter- 
ary fund"  was  being  used  for  the  encouragement  of  a 
variety  of  institutions  both  higher  and  secondary,  all  of 
which  had  been  established  by  private  initiative.  Much 
the  same  was  true  of  Massachusetts  and,  in  fact,  of  New 
England  generally.  To  the  western  settlers,  higher  and 
secondary  education  naturally  first  presented  themselves 
in  the  form  of  the  familiar  academy  and  college  with 
their  trustee  management,  classical  curriculum,  substan- 
tial fees,  sex  segregation,  and  dormitory  residence, — 
institutions  eligible  for  unmethodical  state  aid,  but 
founded  by  private  donations  and  swayed  by  denomina- 
tional interests.  In  every  point  this  system  was  anti- 
thetic to  the  university  plan.  Yet  whatever  pre-con- 
ception  the  leaders  might  entertain,  only  those  of  firm 
originality  could  free  themselves  from  the  obsession  of 
the  working  models  with  which  they  were  familiar. 
Nor  would  it  be  remarkable  if  the  mass  of  the  people,  to 
whom  the  interests  of  higher  education  were  at  best  of 
remote  concern,  should  be  content  to  leave  them  where 
they  were  accustomed  to  see  them,  in  private  hands. 
Needless  to  say,  in  a  new  country,  where  all  the  world 
was  young  and  there  were  no  accumulated  fortunes,  such 


36  WISCONSIN 

support,  on  an  adequate  scale,  would  have  arrived  but 
slowly. 

The  land  grants  were  of  great  moment,  inasmuch  as 
they  placed  in  trust  with  each  state  a  fund  for  higher 
education  which  brought  it  under  official  cognizance. 
All  of  the  earlier  grants  were  more  or  less  mismanaged 
and  some  of  them  virtually  squandered,  facts  whose 
financial  significance  is  frequently  distorted.  With  the 
best  of  management  the  income  from  the  grants  would 
not  have  been  sufficient  to  support  the  universities  on 
their  present  scale.  Actually,  the  land  grant  funds 
provide,  in  most  cases,  an  insignificant  fraction  of  the 
university  income.  Their  significance  lies  in  the  con- 
sideration that  they  threw  a  responsibility  upon  the  state 
which,  under  proper  conditions,  developed  first  into  state 
control  and  then  into  state  support  of  higher  education. 
Handling  the  university  purse,  and  perhaps  the  more 
when  handling  it  badly,  the  state  became  involved  in  the 
care  and  maintenance  of  its  ward  until  it  came  in  time 
to  regard  this  ward  as  a  child  of  its  own.  A  striking 
indication  of  this  process  is  to  be  found  in  the  readiness 
with  which  the  legislatures  lost  sight  of  the  trust  char- 
acter of  the  funds  and  took  to  administering  them  as  if 
they  were  the  property  of  the  state.  In  Wisconsin,  years 
before  the  state  had  contributed  a  penny  to  the  support 
of  the  institution,  there  was  a  widespread  impression  to 
which  even  legislators  were  not  superior,  that  the  uni- 
versity existed  as  a  charge  upon  the  state.  From  fancied 
to  actual  support  was  a  short  step.  The  sufficiency  of 
the  land  grants  was  quite  generally  overestimated.  Leg- 
islatures that  would  have  shied  at  an  educational  pro- 
posal which  involved  taxation  were  in  haste  to  seize  the 
use  of  a  fund  which  cost  their  constituents  nothing. 
Thus  was  secured  an  early  start  for  the  state  institu- 


ANNIVERSARIES  AND  ORIGINS  37 

tions.  Had  the  lands  been  disposed  of,  however,  and 
the  funds  invested  as  advantageously,  even,  as  was  con- 
sistent with  instant  returns,  a  condition  approximated 
by  the  University  of  Michigan,  the  early  history  of  the 
state  institutions  would  have  been  far  more  illustrious. 
For  none  of  the  land  grant  institutions,  not  even  Michi- 
gan, received  any  financial  aid  direct  from  the  state  until 
after  the  civil  war.1  Without  the  stimulus  of  the  land 
grants  it  is  improbable  that  the  present  close  relations 
between  the  states  and  their  universities  would  ever 
have  come  about. 

A  concomitant  effect  of  the  landed  endowment  of  the 
universities  was  to  precipitate  them  at  once  into  the 
hottest  section  of  pioneer  politics,  that  concerned  with 
the  disposal  of  public  lands.  In  all  the  pioneer  common- 
wealths, land  was  at  first  the  chief  form  of  booty,  and 
under  the  unformed  political  conditions  of  the  frontier 
all  the  rapacities  converged  upon  it.  However  deplorable 
the  results  may  have  been  in  many  particulars,  at  least 
the  universities  were  shielded  against  the  maximum  dis- 
aster, which  was  to  be  forgotten.  Had  the  universities 
enjoyed  funds  of  such  magnitude  and  so  managed  as  to 
render  them  independent  of,  and  thus  perhaps  indif- 
ferent to,  popular  favor,  their  character  must  of  neces- 
sity have  been  much  modified.  They  did  not ;  but  the 
university  which  could  work  out  a  fate  inextricable  from 
that  of  the  body  politic  as  a  whole,  was  likely  to  emerge 
the  stronger  in  the  intimacy  of  its  relations  with  the 
state.  This,  as  we  shall  see,  was  peculiarly  the  case  in 
Wisconsin. 

It  has  been  customary  to  deplore  the  precipitance  with 

1  The  slight  exceptions  to  this  broad  statement  to  be  noted  here 
are  some  small  appropriations  by  the  Iowa  legislature  for  build- 
ings and  repairs  in  1858  and  in  1860  and  1864,  and  appropriations 
in  Michigan  and  Iowa  for  agricultural  colleges. 


891 


38  WISCONSIN 

which  educational  lands  were  disposed  of,  because  it 
involved  a  sacrifice  of  the  much  larger  sums  which  might 
have  accrued  had  the  lands  been  held  for  a  rise  in  value. 
Yet  it  is  a  question  whether  haste  (regardless  of  its 
motive)  was  not  vital  to  the  supremacy  of  the  state  insti- 
tutions over  those  of  sectarian  affiliations.  Where  the 
latter  became  strongly  entrenched  the  progress  of  the 
state  institutions  was  far  more  perplexed.  The  circuit 
rider  preceded  the  educator ;  direct  appeals  to  the  emo- 
tions, to  conscience,  and  to  denominational  zeal,  loosened 
purse  strings  that  would  have  refused  to  unknot  at  the 
invitation  of  literature  and  science.  The  missionary 
spirit  conveyed  into  the  wilderness,  from  the  older 
centers  of  population  and  wealth,  sums  of  money  laden 
with  the  blessings  of  culture  and  encumbered  with  out- 
worn superstitions.  Sectarian  foundations  more  or  less 
feeble,  and  invariably  en  arriere,  everywhere  preoccu- 
pied the  ground.  All  of  the  land  grant  institutions  had 
to  reckon  with  their  rivalry  and  frequently  with  active 
opposition, — an  opposition  likely  to  be  reinforced  by 
sectional  jealousies.  This  danger  came  to  be  foreseen, 
and  sectarian  capture  of  the  universities  was  provided 
against  in  most  of  the  state  constitutions  and  in  legis- 
lative enactment.  But,  in  proportion  as  the  universities 
escaped  religious  entanglements,  they  invited  the  re- 
proach of  irreligion.1    Generations  of  prejudice  favored 

.  *As  late  as  the  seventies  and  eighties,  when  the  truly  religious 
but  emancipated  intellect  of  John  Bascom  presided  over  university 
thought,  the  old  feeling  held  its  ground  in  Wisconsin.  Neighbor- 
hood parsons  shocked  the  souls  of  parents  with  sincere  compari- 
sons between  the  university  and  the  nether  regions  of  their  vener- 
able cosmogony.  As  well  "  send  their  children  to  hell "  as  to  a 
godless  college,  crammed  with  heresy  and  science,  and  doubtless 
steeped  to  the  ears  in  all  the  iniquities  of  Satan.  Cornell  suffered 
from  similar  attacks,  and  it  is  probable  that  every  secular  uni- 
versity was  injured  by  such  agitations  It  was  a.  part  of  the 
wider  spiritual  conflict  which  was  waging  during  the  third 
quarter  of  the  century. 


ANNIVERSARIES  AND  ORIGINS  39 

sectarian  alliances  for  higher  education.  Only  unusual 
tolerance  of  spirit  and  other  favorable  conditions  would 
confer  a  victory  upon  the  new  conception.  Nor  is  it 
surprising  that  the  sectarian  colleges  looked  uneasily 
and  even  covetously  upon  the  "magnificent  endow- 
ments" of  the  state  institutions.  To  the  friends  of  uni- 
versity education,  they  seemed  to  thicken  the  cloud  of 
vultures  which  overhung  the  university  funds ;  but  one 
need  not  condemn  them  too  bitterly.  Institutions  of 
learning,  founded  with  high  purpose  and  at  great  sacri- 
fice and  performing  yeoman  service  among  the  privations 
of  the  frontier  might  conscientiously  (though  illegally) 
aspire  to  a  share  of  the  public  bounty.  There  was  pre- 
cedent for  it.  Moreover  their  distrust  of  the  secular  in- 
stitutions was  sincere  and,  from  their  point  of  view,  it 
was  well  grounded.  It  is  reasonable  to  remember,  also, 
that  such  experiences  were  not  the  peculiar  lot  of  any 
single  university  but  inseparable  from  the  circumstances 
under  which  the  species  was  developed.  Thus  the  very 
year  (1855)  in  which  the  Wisconsin  legislature  was  the 
scene  of  the  most  formidable  movement  to  abolish  the 
university  and  disperse  its  fund  among  the  private  col- 
leges of  the  state,  a  similar  assault  upon  the  university 
fund  was  barely  defeated  in  California,  where  the  uni- 
versity had  not  yet  been  founded.  Had  either  of  these 
movements  succeeded,  it  would  have  altered  materially 
the  history  of  state  education  in  this  country. 

Since  Wisconsin  was  the  latest  unit  of  the  old  North- 
west to  be  taken  up,  it  came  in  for  organization  when  the 
state  university  idea  was  no  longer  a  novelty.  Its  land 
grants  were  made  as  a  clear  matter  of  routine  and  the 
first  steps  toward  the  establishment  of  the  university 
were  taken  with  dispatch.  The  university  was  virtually 
coeval  with  the  state.    Nevertheless  the  university  idea 


40  WISCONSIN 

was  far  from  universally  acceded  to  in  theory  and  its 
practical  working  details  remained  to  be  evolved.  Nomi- 
nally, there  existed  state  universities  in  several  western 
states;  actually,  none  of  these  had  as  yet  realized  the 
university  conception.  Upon  Ohio  had  fallen  the  task  of 
the  earliest  experiment.  Two  separate  grants  for  "semi- 
naries of  learning"  had  yielded,  on  an  unsuccessful  leas- 
ing system,  meager  funds  which  had  been  devoted  to  the 
foundation  of  two  distinct  institutions,  Ohio  University 
at  Athens  and  Miami  University  at  Oxford,  chartered, 
respectively,  in  1804  and  1809,  though  the  latter  did  not 
open  its  doors  until  1824.  It  will  be  noted  that  these 
foundations  antedated  Virginia.  Neither  differed  essen- 
tially from  the  old-fashioned  classical  college  and  neither 
had  resources  in  sufficient  abundance  to  give  it  a  clear 
leadership  in  the  state.  Ohio  became  famous  as  the  home 
of  thirty  colleges,  but  not  for  the  strength  of  any  par- 
ticular institution.  In  Indiana,  a  vacillating  policy  as 
to  the  location  of  the  university  had  resulted  in  a  sec- 
tional conflict,  tiresome  litigation,  and  two  institutions. 
Indiana  College  at  Bloomington,  founded  in  1828,  had 
taken  the  name  of  a  State  University  in  1838  and  opened 
a  law  department  in  1840 ;  but  this  institution  had  failed 
to  secure  a  paramount  place  among  the  colleges  of  the 
state.  In  Illinois,  it  should  be  interpolated,  the  land 
grant  had  thus  far  failed  of  its  purpose  entirely.  The 
lands  had  been  hastily  sold  and  the  proceeds,  under  the 
fiction  of  a  loan,  promptly  converted  to  the  general  uses 
of  the  state  government.  It  was  not  until  1857  that  the 
current  interest  on  this  nominal  fund  (back  interest  was 
not  made  good)  was  devoted  to  education,  and  then 
merely  to  the  support  of  a  State  Normal  University. 
The  influence  of  private  colleges  is  said  to  have  con- 
tributed to  the  defeat  of  early  attempts  to  found  a  uni- 


ANNIVERSARIES  AND  ORIGINS  41 

versity  in  Illinois.  Across  the  Mississippi,  Missouri  had 
provided  for  a  university  in  its  first  constitution  (1820) 
but  had  delayed  organization  for  two  decades.  Its  head 
since  1840  had  been  that  "John  H.  Lathrop,  the  present 
accomplished  president  of  the  University  of  Missouri" 
who  was  called  to  Wisconsin  in  1848.  Missouri 's  finances 
had  been  ruinously  managed.  It  had  not  progressed 
under  Lathrop 's  presidency,  nor  did  it  progress  until 
after  the  war,  beyond  the  stage  of  a  struggling  college 
of  liberal  arts.  Iowa,  though  it  had  entered  the  Union 
two  years  before  Wisconsin,  was  a  few  months  behind 
her  in  establishing  a  university  and  did  not  actually 
open  a  college  of  liberal  arts  until  several  years  after- 
ward. Obviously  none  of  these  examples  afforded  the 
counsel,  or  the  comfort,  of  successful  accomplishment. 

There  remains  to  be  mentioned  only  the  University  of 
Michigan,  from  which,  in  effect,  the  Wisconsin  leaders 
most  immediately  borrowed  encouragement  and  positive 
example.  The  University  of  Michigan  counts  its  anniver- 
saries from  1837.  It  therefore  antedates,  in  point  of  ac- 
tual foundation,  all  the  western  state  universities  except 
the  sterile  foundations  in  Ohio.  But  more  important 
than  Michigan's  priority  of  foundation  was  the  success 
of  its  first  thirty  years,  which  brought  it  into  conspicuous 
rivalry  with  the  great  private  colleges  of  the  East  and 
conferred  prestige  upon  state  education  throughout  the 
West.  Thus,  though  its  earlier  influence  is  by  no  means 
negligible,  this  was  of  inferior  importance  compared 
with  the  powerful  impetus  of  its  example  during  the 
widespread  organization  and  reorganization  of  state 
universities  which  followed  directly  after  the  Civil  War. 
Let  us  not  infer  that  Wisconsin  servilely  followed  the 
Michigan  pattern.  It  is  necessary,  here,  to  keep  a  fairly 
strict  chronology.     It  should  not  be  overlooked  that, 


42  WISCONSIN 

though  Michigan  had  a  start  of  approximately  a  decade, 
it  had  made  but  modest  progress  during  that  time  and 
had  encountered  difficulties  which  led  to  fundamental 
changes  in  its  organization  two  years  after  Wisconsin 
took  its  first  steps.  The  latter  worked  out,  in  the  course 
of  its  own  experience,  a  system  which  differed  signifi- 
cantly from  that  of  its  tentative  model.  But  aside  from 
its  influence  as  a  model,  Michigan  will  furnish  a  needed 
standard  of  comparison  when  we  come  to  trace  in  detail 
the  proceedings  in  Wisconsin.  The  two  were  so  nearly 
contemporary  and  neighbored  each,  other  in  so  many 
ways  that  the  general  conditions  which  backgrounded 
their  early  development  are  much  the  same.  For  all 
these  reasons,  the  relation  between  them  is  of  sufficient 
interest  and  importance  to  justify,  in  the  history  of  the 
younger,  a  rather  full  account  of  the  older  institution. 

The  rise  of  Michigan  was  coincident  with  the  intel- 
lectual movement  which  began  to  show  vitality  in  this 
country,  about  1830,  in  such  phenomena  as  New  England 
transcendentalism,  the  rediscovery  of  the  European  con- 
tinent, more  distinguished  literary  activity,  an  incipient 
demand  for  scientific  enlightenment,  more  rational  re- 
ligious ideas,  and  other  evidences  of  a  new  and  more 
vigorous  intellectual  life.  One  phase  of  this  awakening 
was  a  renewed  interest  in  education  and  a  growing  dis- 
content with  its  stereotyped  forms.  In  the  general  move- 
ment the  influence  of  German  thought  played  no  small 
part  and,  in  the  domain  of  education,  German  ideas  and 
institutions  were  destined  to  work  with  increasing  force 
for  at  least  two  generations.  It  is  significant  that  the 
western  world  first  gained  a  thorough  acquaintance  with 
the  subject  of  German  education  through  the  medium 
of  a  French  book,  Victor  Cousin's  report  to  the 
French  Minister  of  Public  Instruction  (1833),  a  thor- 


ANNIVERSARIES  AND  ORIGINS  43 

ough,  lucid,  and  professional  exposition  of  the  German 
system  of  state  education,  especially  of  that  of  Prussia.1 
Subsequently  the  influence  of  this  noted  document  was 
supplemented  by  first-hand  American  studies  such  as 
Horace  Mann's  Report  on  German  Sclwols  (1834)  and 
the  voluminous  writings  of  Henry  Barnard,  by  the  in- 
novations of  the  former  at  Antioch  College  and  the 
latter 's  work  in  renovating  the  common  schools  of  Rhode 
Island  and  Connecticut,  by  the  importation  of  German 
scholars  into  American  colleges  and  the  exportation  of 
American  students  to  the  German  universities.  Roughly 
summarized  the  results  of  the  German  contact  were  (1) 
to  bring  into  clear  prominence  the  threefold  division  of 
education  into  primary,  secondary,  and  higher;  (2)  to 
emphasize  the  interdependence  and  the  need  of  cor- 
relation between  the  three  divisions;  (3)  to  throw  stress 
upon  the  professional  training  of  the  teacher ;  (4)  to  call 
attention  to  the  value  of  technical  training  in  general; 
(5)  to  broaden  and  elevate  the  conception  of  higher 
education;  (6)  to  strengthen  by  example  the  idea  of 
government  responsibility  toward  all  these  phases  of 
education,  but  especially  toward  higher  education,  where 
example  was  most  needed.  Rev.  John  D.  Pierce,  Michi- 
gan's first  superintendent  of  public  instruction  and 
chief  author  of  its  system  of  education,  had  made  a  study 
of  Cousin's  report  and  carried  directly  into  the  Michi- 
gan scheme  many  German  devices.  Some  of  these  failed 
to  endure  the  test  of  use  and  were  afterward  discarded ; 
but  the  general  logic  persisted  and  gave  a  coherence  to 
the  system  which  recommended  it  to  most  of  the 
subsequent  builders  of  American  states.  A  central 
university  dominating  and  knitting  up  the  educational 

1  De  Vinstruction  publique  dans  quelques  pays  de  VAUemagne 
et  particulierement  en  Prusse  Paris,  1833.  An  English  trans- 
lation was  published  in  London,  in  1834. 


44  WISCONSIN 

activities  of  the  state  was  the  crowning  feature  of  the 
plan. 

A  new  and  interesting  educational  policy  would  have 
availed  little  without  a  convenient  financial  basis,  and 
here  Michigan  took  counsel  from  the  woes  of  its  prede- 
cessors. The  immediate  means  of  its  unique  success  was 
the  relatively  fortunate  management  of  its  land  grant. 
In  1826,  Congress  had  raised  Michigan's  seminary  grant 
from  one  to  two  townships  and  had  accorded  the  privi- 
lege of  locating  the  land  in  detached  areas  of  not  less 
than  a  section  each.  The  lands  were  selected  early  and 
proved  to  have  been  well  chosen.  Only  a  few  sections 
were  parted  with  in  territorial  days.1  The  state  super- 
intendent of  public  instruction,  had  charge  of  the  lands 
during  the  first  five  years  after  the  university  was 
organized  and  he  advocated  a  policy  of  gradual  sales. 
He  estimated  that  by  such  procedure  a  fund  of  one 
million  dollars  might  be  ultimately  realized  and  still 
make  provision  for  immediate  needs,  and  he  sold,  during 
the  year  1837,  over  one-seventh  of  the  lands  at  a  price 
which,  had  it  been  maintained,  would  have  produced 
more  than  the  estimated  sum.  But  various  causes,  in- 
cluding private  relief  measures  and  sweeping  reduction 
of  price  on  the  part  of  successive  legislatures,  resulted 
in  confining  the  total  proceeds  of  sales  to  a  little  more 
than  half  of  the  original  computation.  Even  so,  the 
average  price  realized  upon  all  lands  sold  after  the 
organization  of  the  university  was  a  little  over  twelve 
dollars  an  acre.    Considering  that  in  1850  the  cash  value 

1  Two  sections,  famous  as  "  the  Toledo  lands  "  because,  later  on, 
they  turned  out  to  be  located  "  in  the  heart  of  the  city  of  Toledo," 
were  among  these  and  have  been  the  subject  of  much  threnody. 
There  are  few  dealers  in  land  who  cannot  point  to  fortunes  which 
might  have  been  theirs,  "  if  their  foresight  had  been  equal  to  their 
hindsight."  Such  might-have-beens  would  seem  to  be  as  futile  in 
the  case  of  a  public  trust  as  of  private  investments. 


ANNIVERSARIES  AND  ORIGINS  45 

of  all  Michigan  farm  lands,  improved  and  unimproved, 
as  estimated  in  the  United  States  Census  of  that  year, 
yields  an  average  of  just  about  $12.00  an  acre,  this 
cannot  be  considered  a  bad  record.  It  was  in  fact  triple 
the  rate  realized  upon  any  other  university  grant  in  the 
Northwest  Territory. 

As  a  result  of  this  management  the  University  of 
Michigan  enjoyed,  except  for  a  short  period  in  the  early 
forties,  financial  resources  fairly  adequate  to  the  work  it 
set  out  to  perform.  At  the  outset  Superintendent  Pierce 
projected  an  ambitious  system  of  Branch  Schools,  ob- 
viously suggested  by  the  gymnasia  of  Germany.  The 
quick  returns  of  1837  made  it  possible  to  set  some  of 
these  in  immediate  operation.  Seven  of  them  were  even- 
tually started  and  the  university  expended  about  $35,000 
in  this  way.  Later  they  proved  too  great  a  drain  on  the 
fund  and  were  discontinued  ( 1849-50). *  In  the  mean- 
time they  had  preempted  ground  which  might  have  been 
occupied  by  denominational  foundations  such  as  the 
superintendent  vainly  tried  to  have  prohibited  by  legis- 
lation. Also,  they  gave  an  early  and  much  needed  lift 
to  secondary  education.  In  both  respects,  they  worked 
to  the  advantage  of  the  university. 

A  loan  from  its  own  fund  in  1838  enabled  the  univer- 
sity to  erect  the  necessary  buildings  and,  while  this 
crippled  its  income  for  a  number  of  years,  the  legislature 
of  1853  came  to  the  rescue  by  ordering  that  "the  entire 
amount  of   interest    ...    on  the  whole   amount  of 

1  The  university  clause  of  the  Wisconsin  constitution  provides 
for  "  such  other  colleges  in  various  parts  of  the  State  as  the 
interests  of  education  may  require."  It  is  interesting  to  note 
that  this  feature  was  incorporated  in  the  Wisconsin  constitution 
on  the  very  eve  of  its  abandonment  by  Michigan  Missouri  and 
Iowa  adopted  similar  provisions.  Wisconsin  proved  to  have  no 
funds  for  such  costly  experiments;  the  place  of  the  Junior  Col- 
leges here  contemplated  was  ultimately  filled  to  a  certain  degree 
by  the  state  normal  schools. 


46  WISCONSIN 

university  lands  sold"  should  be  thereafter  paid  to  the 
university.  Subsequently  (1877),  the  principal  of  the 
loan  was  transferred  to  the  university  account,  thus 
retrospectively  converting  the  original  loan  into  a 
gift.  This,  and  the  privilege,  given  in  1844,  of  re- 
ceiving payment  for  university  lands  in  depreciated 
scrip  and  crediting  the  same  at  par,  constituted  the 
nearest  approach  to  state  aid  received  by  the  uni- 
versity previous  to  its  first  direct  appropriation  in 
1867. 

The  bad  investments  which  depleted  many  university 
funds  were  completely  avoided.  The  proceeds  of  the 
land  sales  were  loaned  entirely  to  the  state  and  the 
interest  constituted  the  current  income  of  the  university. 
The  highest  annual  expenditure  down  to  1851  was 
$19,683.85.  The  removal  of  the  building  loan  incubus 
in  1853  brought  sudden  relief  and  by  the  gradual  sale  of 
lands  and  increase  in  student  fees,  the  annual  income 
crept  up  to  about  $60,000,  where  it  hovered  until  appro- 
priations began.  For  a  number  of  years  these  sums 
were  regularly  voted  by  the  legislature,  but  by  the  re- 
organization under  a  new  state  constitution  followed  by 
legislative  enactment,  in  1850-51,  the  university  finances 
were  placed  fully  in  the  control  of  the  board  of  regents. 
At  the  same  time  the  appointment  of  the  board  was 
taken  out  of  the  hands  of  the  governor  and  senate 
and  consigned  to  the  people  on  the  same  basis  as  the 
judiciary.  So  long  as  it  made  its  income  suffice,  the 
university  was  largely  emancipated  from  the  legislature. 
This  situation  endured  over  fifteen  years  at  an  im- 
portant epoch  in  its  development.  During  the  pioneer 
stages  of  legislation  probably  this  estrangement  was 
advantageous;  it  is  doubtful  if  it  proved  so  after 
the  university  had  greatly  outgrown  its  own  income. 


ANNIVERSARIES  AND  ORIGINS  47 

Previous  to  the  reorganization  just  mentioned,  which 
it  will  be  noticed  was  shortly  after  the  organization  of 
the  University  of  Wisconsin  and  exactly  synchronized 
with  the  formation  there  of  the  first  college  class,  Michi- 
gan had  existed  solely  as  a  college  of  liberal  arts.  Its 
first  organic  act  had  called  for  three  departments;  a 
department  of  Literature,  Science,  and  the  Arts;  a  de- 
partment of  Medicine ;  and  a  department  of  Law.  The 
great  development  which  awaited  applied  science  was 
but  faintly  appreciated  when  the  Michigan  act  was 
drawn ;  it  was  anticipated  that  all  the  requirements  in 
this  field  of  instruction  would  be  met  by  the  expansion 
of  the  first  department,  a  line  of  evolution  which  was 
eventually  followed  in  Wisconsin.  The  first  department 
had  opened  in  1841  with  six  students  and,  after  1843-44, 
graduated  upwards  of  ten  men  each  year.  The  depart- 
ment of  medicine  did  not  begin  operations  until  1850  and 
the  law  department  not  until  1859.  Thus  far,  Michigan 
had  not  differed  materially  in  curriculum  and  dis- 
cipline from  the  old-fashioned  classical  college.  Dormi- 
tory residence  was  provided  for  students  and  the  faculty 
were  housed  on  the  campus.  Instruction  was  supposedly 
non-sectarian,  but  popular  anxiety  as  to  the  religious 
atmosphere  of  the  university  was  allayed  by  composing 
the  faculty  chiefly  of  ministers  from  the  various  de- 
nominations. With  the  best  of  intentions,  however,  it 
was  found  difficult,  under  these  circumstances,  to  secure 
harmonious  action.  For  this  and  other  reasons,  the  Ger- 
man rectorial  system  of  internal  government  which  had 
been  adopted  for  the  faculty  was  recognized  as  unsuited 
to  the  American  border,  and,  among  the  new  features  of 
the  reorganization  of  1850-51,  a  presidency  was  wisely 
included. 

The  new  executive  office  was  filled  in  1852  by  the 


48  WISCONSIN 

election  and  acceptance  of  Henry  P.  Tappan.  His 
election  was  reported  as  unanimous  and  is  frequently  so 
recorded;  but  on  the  first  ballot,  John  H.  Lathrop,  then 
chancellor  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  had  received 
only  one  less  vote.  Henry  Barnard,  who  became  Chan- 
cellor Lathrop 's  successor  at  Wisconsin  seven  years  later, 
had  been  elected  to  the  Michigan  presidency  and  had 
declined  previous  to  the  election  of  President  Tappan. 
There  can  be  no  question  that  here  again,  Michigan  was 
favored  by  fortune.  It  secured  for  its  first  president  a 
very  unusual  man  singularly  fitted  for  the  task  to  which 
he  was  called.  A  scholar  of  rare  gifts  and  commanding 
spirit,  abreast  of  the  age  and  in  the  prime  of  his  powers, 
President  Tappan  went  to  Michigan  highly  conscious  of 
his  great  and  interesting  adventure.  He  had  studied 
abroad,  was  deeply  imbued  with  Prussian  ideas  of  edu- 
cation and  impressed  with  the  opportunity  for  their 
plantation  in  the  free  fields  of  the  west.  His  able  policy 
and  inspiring  ideals  dominated  Michigan  counsels  for 
a  decade  and  wrought  as  traditions  after  he  had  dis- 
appeared in  clouds  and  figurations.  At  a  period 
crucial  not  only  for  Michigan  but  for  the  entire  state 
university  movement,  he  supplied  the  indispensable  force 
of  vivid  personality. 

Michigan  forged  rapidly  ahead.  The  financial  relief 
which  has  been  mentioned  came  promptly.  The  era  of 
expensive  equipment  for  scientific  education  had  not  yet 
arrived.  Men  and  books  were  the  chief  essentials  in  all 
departments,  and  the  scale  of  salaries  throughout  the 
country  was  low.  President  Tappan  cleared  the  dormi- 
tories for  more  strictly  educational  uses  and  thus  made 
room  for  the  university  without  further  outlay  for  build- 
ings. The  professional  departments  proved  popular  and, 
by  the  end  of  the  period  under  consideration,  far  sur- 


ANNIVERSARIES  AND  ORIGINS  49 

passed  the  central  college  in  enrollment.  The  scientific 
movement  was  recognized  by  providing  a  special  course 
leading  to  the  Pachelor  of  Science  degree,  which  Michi- 
gan conferred  for  the  first  time  in  1856,  being  the  second 
institution  in  the  country  to  do  so.  Extension  into  the 
fields  of  applied  science  soon  followed.  Michigan  was 
felt  to  be  in  the  van  of  education;  the  state  university 
idea  seemed  both  liberal  and  democratic,  and,  however 
"old  fogies"  might  regard  it,  appealed  to  the  rising 
social  consciousness  of  that  day.  The  university  was 
soon  in  undisputed  command  of  the  educational  forces 
of  the  state  and  drawing  largely  from  without  its 
borders.  It  was,  as  a  fact,  the  most  competent  institu- 
tion of  superior  instruction  west  of  Philadelphia ;  it  was 
easily  accessible  to  western  New  York  and  Pennsylvania, 
to  Canada,  to  ^Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illinois;  an  almost 
nominal  tuition  doubtless  added  to  its  attractiveness. 
By  1867,  Michigan,  at  an  annual  expenditure  of  less 
than  $60,000  was  supporting  a  large  corps  of  profes- 
sors, many  of  them  scholars  of  considerable  repute, 
and  in  that  year  supplied  instruction  to  1,255  students 
drawn  from  two-thirds  of  the  states  of  the  Union.  The 
legislature  inscribed  another  flourishing  rubric  under 
this  date  by  making  its  first  direct  appropriation  for  the 
support  of  the  university ;  it  was  the  first  to  be  received 
by  any  of  the  institutions  foreshadowed  in  the  Ordinance 
of  eighty  years  before.  The  University  of  Michigan  had 
"arrived." 

The  early  course  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin  is  in 
striking  contrast  to  this  prosperous  history.  Estimating 
progress  by  magnitude,  forty-four  years  were  to  elapse 
after  it  was  founded  before  it  reached  the  mark  which 
Michigan  had  set  at  the  end  of  thirty.  After  some- 
thing more  than  a  decade  spent  in  gathering  funds  and 


50  WISCONSIN 

in  preliminary  experiments,  Michigan  had  reorganized 
and  entered  upon  the  brilliant  epoch  sketched  above,  just 
as  Wisconsin,  with  those  experiments  for  guidance,  was 
engaged  in  the  first  stages  of  organization.  At  the  end 
of  that  period,  the  latter,  still  feeble,  was  in  the  throes 
of  the  final  reorganization  which  placed  it  at  last  on 
the  basis  that  led  to  a  career  of  consistent  growth.  Not 
until  1892,  a  quarter  of  a  century  later,  did  Wisconsin 
show  upon  its  rolls  as  many  students  as  Michigan  had 
gathered  together  in  1867.  Yet  most  of  the  general 
conditions  which  conjoined  to  procure  the  success  of 
Michigan  were  equally  favorable  to  Wisconsin.  If  we 
would  find  the  reasons  for  this  striking  difference  in 
growth  we  shall  probably  have  to  seek  for  them  chiefly 
in  particular  circumstances  and  in  turns  given  to  events 
by  particular  persons  and  combinations  of  persons, 
rather  than  in  the  general  conditions  which  environed 
the  two  universities.  The  particular  events  will  natu- 
rally constitute  the  chief  substance  of  our  history;  a 
brief  discussion  of  the  general  conditions  which  en- 
vironed the  two  universities,  will  serve  to  bring  into 
prominence  some  salient  features  of  that  history  and 
perhaps  shed  significance  upon  the  details  that  crowd 
subsequent  chapters. 

In  the  character  of  their  population  and  the  time  and 
pace  of  their  material  development  the  two  states  were 
not  dissimilar.  Both  were  clear  northern,  without  that 
overlapping  of  the  southern  zone  which  complicated  the 
affairs  of  all  other  states  made  out  of  the  Northwest 
Territory.  The  acuteness  of  sectional  feeling  at  the  time 
made  this  a  matter  of  no  small  moment.  In  both  states, 
the  native  families  from  New  England,  New  York,  and 
upper  Ohio  were  the  dominant  element  in  political  and 
social  life  throughout  the  formative  period.    Both  had  a 


ANNIVERSARIES  AND  ORIGINS  51 

large  foreign  element,  but  Wisconsin  a  much  larger,1  and 
this  fact  coupled  with  Michigan's  propinquity  to  the 
East  tended  to  a  slightly  longer  and  stronger  dominion 
of  the  elder  culture  in  the  older  state,  with  results  too 
complex  for  analysis.  Both  had  to  contend  at  the  outset 
with  the  rudeness  of  the  frontier,  and  the  keenest  sacri- 
fice which  the  pioneer  pays  to  new  fortunes  is  that  of 
his  children's  education.  A  struggle  for  life's  mere 
necessities  leaves  little  room  or  inclination  for  the  im- 
provement of  the  mind.  In  a  pioneer  society,  whatever 
the  culture  of  the  first  generation  it  passes  with  difficulty 
to  the  second,  and  thus  a  whole  generation  may  slip,  not 
only  to  a  lower  level  of  knowledge  and  refinement,  but 
out  of  sympathy  with  them.  Frontier  society  is  essen- 
tially undisciplined  and  begets  a  temper  the  reverse  of 
academic ;  where  life  is  rough  and  opportunity  rich,  the 
frequent  material  success  of  untutored  mother  wit  tends 
to  throw  contempt  upon  learning.  Michigan  and  Wis- 
consin did  not  escape  these  inevitable  conditions  of 
frontier  life ;  but  they  suffered  from  them  far  less  than 
regions  that  were  opened  earlier,  such  as  Ohio,  Indiana, 
and  parts  of  Illinois  and  Missouri.  Wisconsin  shared 
with  Michigan  a  rapidity  of  settlement  which  left  no 
time  for  such  retrogression.  Steamboats,  railroads, 
machinery,  and  a  world-wide  movement  of  peoples  facili- 
tated their  development.  Even  the  first  generation  lived 
to  see  the  end  of  pioneer  trials  and  participate  in  the 
wonders  of  the  new  civilization.  As  immigration  con- 
tinued to  be  active  well  through  the  formative  period, 
the  earlier  pioneer  group  was  reinforced  by  fresh  ar- 

1  In  1850,  Wisconsin  had  a  population  three-fourths  that  of 
Michigan  and  had  double  the  number  of  foreigners.  Differently 
stated,  thirty  per  cent,  of  the  inhabitants  of  Wisconsin,  about 
fourteen  per  cent,  of  the  inhabitants  of  Michigan,  were  foreign 
born. 


52  WISCONSIN 

rivals  with  somewhat  more  exacting  ideas  of  civilization, 
from  the  older  centers  of  population  and  culture.  The 
swift  coming  of  prosperity,  therefore,  placed  the  im- 
provement of  education  in  the  hands  of  a  people  who, 
without  having  lapsed  into  ignorance  of  the  older  insti- 
tutions of  the  East  and  of  Europe,  were,  by  natural 
selection  and  by  experience,  emancipated  from  them. 
Being  of  a  temper  to  embrace  innovations,  they  speedily 
contrived  institutions  for  themselves  which  they  con- 
ceived to  be  in  harmony  with  their  novel  necessities  and 
with  advancing  knowledge. 

But  the  material  developments  which  were  contempo- 
raneous with  the  foundation  of  Michigan  and  Wisconsin 
had  a  bearing  even  more  direct  upon  the  fortunes  of  the 
universities.  The  improvements  in  transportation,  which 
facilitated  settlement,  also  greatly  favored  the  centrali- 
zation of  educational  opportunities.  As  distances  became 
less  formidable,  there  was  less  reason  for  each  section  of 
a  state  to  insist  upon  an  institution  of  its  own.  In  this 
particular  the  universities  of  Michigan  and  Wisconsin 
had  great  advantages  over  earlier  foundations  in  regions 
that  remained  for  a  long  time  sparsely  settled.  Further, 
whether  for  good  or  ill,  the  rational  spirit  which  accom- 
panied these  developments  was  everywhere  weakening 
the  force  of  religious,  especially  of  denominational  senti- 
ment; and,  whatever  it  lacked  of  the  enlightenment 
which  elsewhere  made  for  the  broadening  of  religious 
truth,  the  frontier  made  good  by  an  intense  positivism 
which  did  not  leave  it  behind  in  abandoning  the  ancient 
standards.  Michigan  and  Wisconsin  still  had  sectarian- 
ism to  deal  with ;  but  it  was  a  sectarianism  much  cooled 
from  that  of  a  generation  earlier,  and  no  longer  a  com- 
mander of  popular  majorities.  In  Wisconsin,  more 
particularly,  there  was  added  to  divergencies  in  religious 


ANNIVERSARIES  AND  ORIGINS  53 

views,  diversity  of  language  and  nationality.  Both  at 
first  produced  distrust  of  higher  education  by  the  state ; 
but  this  very  miscellaneity  tended  to  destroy  itself.  In 
a  society  relatively  equal  and  generally  ambitious,  it 
soon  dawned  upon  the  more  intelligent  that  no  sect  or 
nationality  could  provide  advantages  for  a  part  com- 
parable to  those  which  the  state  could  provide  for  all. 
The  universities  themselves  constantly  augmented  the 
flood  of  sterilizing  ideas  which  washed  away  these  de- 
marcations. Centralization  once  effected,  the  very  mag- 
nitude of  the  enterprise  captured  the  popular  imagina- 
tion, always  alert  to  this  appeal,  and,  as  the  means  of 
the  state  institutions  became  adequate  to  their  objects 
their  supremacy  over  sectarian  rivals  was  sealed  by  the 
economic  phase  of  scientific  and  technical  education. 
These  became  so  enormously  expensive,  as  to  be  hope- 
lessly outside  the  range  of  the  smaller  endowed  colleges. 
What  was  true,  in  all  these  respects,  of  both  Michigan 
and  Wisconsin  should  have  been  more  notably  true  of 
the  latter  and  ought  to  have  worked  as  promptly,  for 
it  began  later  and,  as  has  been  previously  shown,  no 
state,  up  to  that  -time,  had  developed  so  rapidly.  Glanc- 
ing ahead,  we  find  that,  by  1870,  Wisconsin  virtually 
overtook  Michigan  in  wealth  and  taxation.1  That  the 
very  swiftness  of  this  development  registers  a  counter- 
vailing f everishness  in  business  affairs  which  temporarily 
worked  against  intellectual  interests  is  not  beyond  con- 
jecture, as  we  shall  directly  notice.  Balancing  every- 
thing, however,  it  would  not  be  easy  to  make  out  that, 
except  for  its  ten  years'  lead  in  point  of  settlement, 

1  The  United  States  Census  of  1870  gives  as  the  total  assessed 
valuation  of  Michigan,  $272,242,917;  of  Wisconsin,  $333,209,838. 
It  gives  as  the  true  valuation  for  Michigan,  $718,208,118;  for 
Wisconsin,  $702,307,329.  The  total  taxes  raised  were,  in  Michi- 
gan, $5,412,957;  in  Wisconsin,  $5,387,970. 


54  WISCONSIN 

Michigan  enjoyed  any  very  definite  advantage,  on  ac- 
count of  its  general  social  and  cultural  conditions. 

In  the  realm  of  politics  the  situation  of  Wisconsin  was 
different.  The  anxiety  to  hasten  the  material  develop- 
ment of  the  state  encouraged  policies,  and  the  great 
enterprises  that  hurried  it  on  brought  abuses,  which  bore 
directly  upon  the  immediate  fortunes  of  the  university 
and  proved  fatal  to  them.  Notwithstanding  the  experi- 
ence of  others,  the  legislature  of  the  state  showed  a 
disposition  from  the  beginning  to  keep  the  university 
finances  under  a  close  control  which  later  legislatures 
rather  stiffened  than  relinquished.  Probably  at  first  this 
policy  was  only  misguided;  but  later  it  took  on  a  more 
sinister  aspect.  About  1850,  the  railroads  began  to  enter 
the  Mississippi  Valley  and  blew  political  pestilence  in 
their  van.  Their  coming  was  contemporaneous  with  the 
mania  of  speculation  which  culminated  in  the  disastrous 
panic  of  1857,  and  this  was  at  its  height  during  years 
that  were  crucial  for  the  University  of  Wisconsin. 
Speculation  in  public  lands  was  one  phase  of  this  gen- 
eral commercial  phenomenon.  As  large  quantities  of 
public  land  had  been  set  aside  for  the  encouragement  of 
railroads,  their  influence  immediately  pervaded  this 
domain.  It  was  the  first  apparition  on  a  large  scale  of 
the  malevolent  influence  of  corporations  in  American 
public  life.  The  lobbies  of  the  provincial  legislatures 
swarmed  with  a  brood  of  promoters  and  seducers,  many 
of  whom,  as  individuals,  were  very  different  from  the 
men  who  made  up  these  bodies,  and  some  of  whom  suc- 
ceeded in  entering  public  life.  For  a  time  the  crude 
political  machinery  of  the  frontier  was  demoralized. 
In  Wisconsin  temptations  converged  upon  political  life 
which  a  few  men  in  critical  positions  of  trust  (unsafe- 
guarded  as  yet,  and  unwarned  by  positive  legislative 


ANNIVERSARIES  AND  ORIGINS  55 

enactment  as  to  their  duties  and  emoluments)  were 
unable  to  withstand.  School  lands  and  university  lands 
alike  were  sucked  into  the  vortex  of  politics  and  specu- 
lation. The  result  was  even  more  disastrous  to  the  uni- 
versity than  to  the  schools,  for  it  had  no  other  resources 
and  was  not  to  have  for  many  years  to  come.  Thus, 
from  twice  the  quantity  of  land,  Wisconsin  derived  a 
university  fund  not  much  more  than  half  that  of 
Michigan.1  The  discrepancjr,  as  has  been  shown,  is 
often  exaggerated  through  a  failure  to  take  into  account 
the  difference  in  the  ruling  prices  of  land  at  the  two 
periods;  but,  after  due  allowance  has  been  made,  the 
waste  attributable  to  mismanagement  and  dishonesty  was 
grievous.  The  ground  of  public  policy  upon  which  cheap 
and  quick  sales  were  defended  was  that  they  would 
hasten  immigration.  The  flimsiness  of  the  argument  can 
be  easily  shown  and  many  knew  it  to  be  specious  at  the 
time.  But  not  only  were  the  lands  too  cheaply  sold ;  the 
proceeds  were  put  out  in  small  private  loans  many  of 
which  were  said  to  have  been  distributed  as  political 
favors,  and  the  funds  were  disastrously  mismanaged  by 
some  of  the  public  officials  to  whom  they  were  entrusted. 
The  period  of  corruption  was  brief  but  it  was  sufficient; 
before  the  state  could  rouse  itself,  irretrievable  damage 
had  been  done  to  the  national  endowment. 

Probably  we  need  seek  no  farther  for  the  causes  which 
compelled  the  University  of  Wisconsin  so  long  to  lag 
behind  its  great  rival  across  the  lake.  Of  course  there 
were  contributory  causes.  Michigan  was  singularly 
favored  in  its  leaders,  especially  in  its  first  president. 
It  was  fortunate  in  the  time  at  which  its  lands  were 
placed  on  the  market.     Most  of  the  legislative  assaults 

1  Further  details  in  regard  to  the  university  lands  will  be  found 
in  a  later  chapter;  only  their  general  bearing  on  university  his- 
tory requires  notice  at  this  point. 


56  WISCONSIN 

upon  its  fund  were  in  the  interest  of  private  relief;  by 
the  time  the  organized  corruption  had  begun  to  operate 
which  was  so  fatal  to  "Wisconsin,  Michigan  was  a  more 
settled  and  experienced  state  than  Wisconsin.  Again, 
by  its  more  favorable  start,  the  University  of  Michigan 
gained  a  momentum  which  carried  it  triumphantly  over 
the  period  of  financial  depression  following  1857  and 
enabled  it  to  continue  vigorously  throughout  the  war. 
Since  it  had  its  own  income,  indeed,  the  financial  dis- 
asters of  1857  affected  it  little  and  may  even  have  en- 
hanced the  lure  of  its  cheap  tuition.  The  University  of 
Wisconsin,  on  the  other  hand,  might  have  recovered  more 
promptly  from  the  early  disasters  to  its  funds,  but  it  had 
no  sooner  begun  to  recover  than  the  panic  of  '57  struck 
dead  all  hope  of  assistance  from  the  state,  and  the  war, 
following  hard  upon,  almost  obliterated  what  remained 
of  the  institution.  When  all  is  said  and  done,  it  remains 
obvious  that  Wisconsin's  failure  to  develop  strength  in 
its  university  during  the  first  twenty  years  is  most 
directly  traceable  to  the  demoralization  of  its  political 
affairs  in  the  middle  fifties. 

The  events  of  these  years  were  of  incalculable  signifi- 
cance in  their  ultimate  effect  upon  the  university's  rela- 
tion to  the  state.  With  its  land  fund  almost  annihilated, 
the  university  was  thrown  upon  the  bounty  of  the  state, 
while  the  state  had  incurred  for  all  time  an  obligation 
which  it  was  sure,  in  time,  to  recognize.  Thus  the  two 
were  knit  together  more  firmly  than  otherwise  they  might 
have  been.  There  is  poignant  irony  in  the  consideration 
that  grave  abuses  in  the  public  service  should  have  been 
the  means  of  bringing  into  close  dependence  upon  the 
legislature  a  university  which,  as  it  gathered  strength 
from  that  very  closeness  of  association,  was  to  weave  its 
men  and  measures  into  the  texture  of  the  state  service 


ANNIVERSARIES  AND  ORIGINS  57 

and  make  forever  impossible  a  recurrence  of  the  political 
misdirection  which  had  cost  it  so  dearly  in  feebler  days. 

As  concerned  its  relation  to  specifically  educational 
ideas,  Michigan  had  had  the  advantage  over  all  the  states 
previously  established  in  the  wilderness,  that  it  came 
unencumbered  to  its  organization  at  a  time  when  a  new 
and  clearer  theory  of  public  education  was  available. 
In  the  brief  interval  between  its  formation  and  that  of 
Wisconsin  these  ideas  had  become  more  widely  dis- 
seminated. In  addition,  Wisconsin  had  a  definite  work- 
ing model  near  at  home.  Its  educational  system  from 
low  to  high  was  avowedly  planned  after  that  which  was 
already  on  trial  in  Michigan.1  But  already  the  concep- 
tion of  the  possible  scope  of  a  state  university  had 
broadened.  Two  needs  of  the  frontier  stood  out  boldly : 
the  need  of  trained  teachers  and  the  need  of  industrial 
education.  Agricultural  societies  and  writers  increas- 
ingly emphasized  the  desirability  of  instruction  in  scien- 
tific agriculture.  For  a  time  there  was  an  odd  antipathy 
toward  it  on  the  part  of  the  farming  class, — an  example 
of  that  ingrained  resentment  of  the  "practical  man" 
against  "theoretical"  invasion  of  his  field  which  has 
opposed  the  march  of  science  in  almost  every  sphere  of 
human  activity.  On  the  other  hand,  as  soon  as  the  virgin 
soil  began  to  show  signs  of  diminishing  returns,  the 
eager  practicality  and  progressiveness  which  inhered  in 
the  frontier  citizen  would  enlist  his  interest  in  this  form 
of  education. 

Here  again,  Michigan  pioneered.  Its  new  constitution 
of  1850  demanded  a  state  agricultural  college  and  the 
legislature  petitioned  Congress  for  a  grant  of  lands  to 
aid  the  project.    This  failing,  the  legislature  of  1853  set 

1  See  Report  of  Committee  on  Education  and  School  Lands. 
House  Journal,  1848. 


58  WISCONSIN 

aside  a  part  of  the  saline  lands  which  the  state  had 
received  for  general  purposes,  added  an  appropriation 
of  $40,000,  and,  in  1857,  Michigan  opened  "the  first 
Agricultural  College  in  America."  It  was,  however, 
entirely  distinct  from  the  university,  and  was  destined 
to  remain  a  separate  institution.  The  same  year,  Illinois 
turned  over  the  shreds  of  its  seminary  grant  to  a  State 
Normal  University.  Contemporaneously,  the  Wisconsin 
leaders  were  struggling  to  bring  into  effect  a  university 
wherein  both  these  activities  of  the  state  in  higher  edu- 
cation should  be  consolidated,  along  with  the  other  de- 
partments of  a  university,  into  a  single  institution.  The 
original  Wisconsin  charter  of  1848  had  gone  beyond  the 
Michigan  scheme  in  the  addition  of  a  "department  of 
the  Theory  and  Practice  of  Elementary  Instruction," 
while  the  early  expressions  of  the  chancellor  and  regents 
and  the  deliberations  of  the  legislature  contain  frequent 
references  to  a  separate  department  or  college  of  Agri- 
culture which  should  be  a  part  of  the  university.  The 
disasters  which  befell  the  university  fund  postponed  the 
realization  of  these  plans  for  nearly  twenty  years.  So 
far  as  they  concerned  the  Department  of  Agriculture, 
they  were  eventually  operative.  Except  for  accidents 
which  will  be  detailed  in  a  later  chapter,  it  is  likely 
that  the  pedagogic  system  of  the  state,  also,  would  have 
come  under  university  direction. 

Meanwhile,  the  appeals  of  Michigan  and  others  had 
borne  fruit.  In  1858,  the  friends  of  agricultural  educa- 
tion succeeded  in  getting  through  Congress  a  bill  which 
provided  for  the  aid  of  agricultural  colleges  by  gifts  of 
land  to  the  various  states.  It  was  a  moment  when  any 
question  which  even  remotely  involved  the  doctrine  of 
state  rights  was  an  invitation  to  battle.  President 
Buchanan  promptly  vetoed  the  bill.     Four  years  later 


ANNIVEKSARIES  AND  ORIGINS  59 

was  introduced  the  similar  measure  now  so  well  known 
as  the  Morrill  Act  "for  the  encouragement  of  Agricul- 
ture and  the  Mechanic  Arts."  Most  of  those  who  had 
opposed  the  earlier  bill  were  either  in  Richmond  or  with 
the  confederate  army;  the  new  measure  passed  without 
opposition  and  was  signed  by  the  hand  that  penned  the 
Emancipation  Proclamation.  Thus  it  happened  that  this 
great  act  for  the  upliftment  of  the  arts  of  peace  stood  by 
to  play  its  part  with  the  other  powerful  forces  which 
brought  about  the  nation-wide  movement  in  state  edu- 
cation directly  after  the  Civil  War. 

As  Michigan's  Agricultural  College  was  already  in 
active  operation  it  naturally  fell  heir  to  the  benefits  of 
this  act,  and  the  cleavage  was  accentuated  between  its 
liberal  and  professional  schools  on  the  one  hand  and  its 
schools  of  applied  science  on  the  other.  Ohio,  Indiana, 
and  Illinois  all  founded  separate  institutions  on  the  basis 
of  the  new  grant.  The  present  state  universities  of  Ohio 
and  Illinois  have  developed  by  liberalizing  their  indus- 
trial universities.  Wisconsin's  evolution  has  been  the 
inverse  of  this.  Her  first  ideal  of  a  single  university  for 
the  state  prevailed  over  all  calamities.  Notwithstanding 
early  retardations,  she  was  the  first  of  the  state  univer- 
sities of  America,  and  the  only  one  in  the  territory  of 
the  Old  Northwest,  to  realize  in  her  organization  the  full 
logic  of  the  state  university  idea.  Iowa  had  already 
founded  a  separate  College  of  Agriculture  and  followed 
the  same  course  as  Michigan;  Missouri,  California, 
Minnesota,  Kansas,  and  Nebraska  followed  the  plan,  if 
not  the  example,  of  Wisconsin ;  among  the  younger  states 
policy  has  not  been  uniform. 

To  discuss,  adequately,  the  merits  of  the  two  systems 
just  indicated  would  carry  us  far  beyond  the  limits  of 
this  chapter.     Few  will  dispute  the  merits  of  the  cen- 


60  WISCONSIN 

tralized  plan  from  the  standpoint  of  economy.  It  may 
be  alleged,  in  behalf  of  the  college  of  liberal  arts,  that 
"the  quiet  and  still  air  of  delightful  studies"  can  be 
kept  purer  in  institutions  exempt  from  the  more  prac- 
tical phases  of  university  education.  It  may  be  re- 
sponded to  this  that  whatever  refinement  the  central 
college  of  liberal  arts  in  a  state  may  gain  by  this 
academic  seclusion,  its  technical  and  utilitarian  depart- 
ments will  lose,  to  make  nothing  of  the  point  that  a 
breeze  now  and  then  is  better  than  stagnation,  even  in 
the  still  air  of  studies.  On  the  whole  there  cannot  be 
much  doubt  that,  whether  on  the  lower  plane  of  practical 
economy  or  in  the  interests  of  the  widest  diffusion  of 
culture  for  the  state,  that  type  of  institution  has  most 
in  its  favor  in  which  "The  languages,  the  modern 
humanities  of  political  economy,  political  science,  his- 
tory, and  sociology,  and  the  pure  sciences,  .  .  .  are 
like  the  palm  of  the  hand  from  which  spring  the  fingers 
of  applied  knowledge — medicine,  law,  engineering,  agri- 
culture, etc."  x  Given  the  right  faith  of  their  professors, 
the  humanities  and  sciences  need  not  ask  a  nobler  chance, 
or  a  fairer  field  than  to  be  arrayed  in  a  central  college 
which,  with  no  sacrifice  of  its  own  integrity  or  its  devo- 
tion to  purest  learning,  leads  out  on  every  side  into  a 
university  concerned  with  the  actual  vocations  of  men. 
Whatever  may  have  been  their  limitations  of  vision  in 
matters  of  detail,  this,  in  general,  was  the  kind  of  uni- 
versity which  the  Wisconsin  founders  had  in  mind  for 
the  state.  They  would  have  felt  nothing  alien  to  their 
thought  in  the  words  of  President  Van  Hise  when,  after 
the  developments  of  half  a  century,  he  pleaded  in  his 
Inaugural  Address  for  a  university  "as  broad  as  human 
endeavor,  as  high  as  human  aspiration." 

1  Charles  R.  Van  Hise,  Central  Boards  of  Control. 


ANNIVERSARIES  AND  ORIGINS  61 

Historically,  as  well  as  organically,  the  University  of 
Wisconsin  fully  embodies  the  conception  of  a  state  insti- 
tution of  superior  instruction  evolved  out  of  a  central 
college  of  humanities  and  pure  science,  in  continuous 
response  to  the  advancement  of  learning,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  requirements  of  society  on  the  other.  Its 
history  falls  naturally  into  three  periods:  (1)  the  period 
of  tentative  effort  to  the  end  of  the  Civil  War;  (2)  the 
period  from  1866  to  1887,  when  the  central  college  was 
perfected  and  won  the  confidence  of  the  state;  (3)  the 
period  of  university  expansion  from  the  last  date  to 
our  entrance  into  the  European  War.  In  the  present 
chapter,  we  have  indicated  its  origins  and  sketched  the 
background  of  its  earliest  period.  So  far,  its  position 
had  been  inconspicuous.  In  the  reorganization  at  the 
end  of  the  Civil  War  the  ideals  of  the  founders  were 
given  clearer  scope  and  in  the  pursuit  of  those  ideals  the 
university  entered  upon  a  career  of  gradually  widening 
usefulness  and  influence  which  has  suffered  no  disas- 
trous check  since  that  time. 

One  may  see  in  this  development  the  rise  of  a  social 
institution  of  no  small  importance.  Its  development  is 
still  incomplete ;  but  so  far  as  it  can  be  traced,  one  will 
be  conscious  of  the  interplay  of  two  great  currents  of 
opinion  and  influence.  On  the  one  hand  there  is  the  influ- 
ence of  ideas  and  of  the  intellectual  leaders  who  cham- 
pion them ;  playing  against  this  there  is  the  current  of 
popular  need  and  desire,  which  in  Wisconsin  has  had 
special  force  because  of  the  university's  close  relation  to 
the  state.  This  university  has  grown  up  like  other  state 
universities  not  as  a  mere  embodiment  of  theoretical 
ideas,  but  by  a  fitting  of  means  to  ends  in  a  particular 
medium  of  frontier  surroundings.  Yet  it  has  not  so 
grown,  as  must  be  already  evident,  without  a  response  to 


62  WISCONSIN 

outside  ideas  and  movements  which  lend  it,  finally,  some- 
thing more  than  a  provincial  significance.  The  next  few 
chapters  tell  of  small  and  sometimes  mean  beginnings; 
mistakes,  reverses,  disappointments,  infinitesimal  tri- 
umphs; but,  as  with  all  beginnings  of  great  enterprises, 
their  interest  is  independent  of  the  scale  on  which  they 
were  wrought. 


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.   Ill 

THE  TOWN  AND  THE  CAMPUS 

The  relation  which  the  university  would  sustain  to 
the  state  was  implied  in  its  location.  From  the  time  of 
the  earliest  territorial  action  it  was  ever  the  prevailing 
doctrine  that  the  university  must  be  situated  "at  or  near 
the  seat  of  state  government."  As  to  the  location  of 
the  capital  itself,  it  constituted  one  of  the  first  questions 
to  come  before  the  territorial  legislature  and  its  ghost 
revisited  state  councils  at  intervals  for  upward  of  a 
generation ;  its  initial  settlement  required  a  month  of 
deliberation  and  virtually  created  the  city  of  Madison. 
A  combination  of  nature  sentiment,  mutual  sacrifices, 
private  "  log-rolling, "  and  fine  contempt  for  the  hazards 
of  the  wilderness, — all  very  characteristic  of  our  pioneer 
law  makers — attended  the  accomplishment  of  the  act. 

Dane  County,  as  set  off  by  the  first  territorial  legis- 
lature when  it  came  together  at  Belmont  in  the  autumn 
of  1836,  was  part  of  a  large  interior  tract  unpenetrated 
by  any  of  the  military  roads  or  navigable  waterways, 
and  did  not  contain  a  dozen  whites.  On  the  north,  it 
was  skirted  by  the  old  military  highway  from  Fort 
Crawford  (Prairie  du  Chien)  to  Fort  Winnebago 
(Portage)  and  on  the  south,  by  a  broad,  ox-train  road 
from  the  mining  region  in  the  southwest  to  Milwaukee 
on  the  lake  front.  From  Fort  Winnebago  to  Green  Bay 
ran  the  excellent  road  which  Captain  Marryat  found  the 
following  summer  on  the  famous  journey  referred  to  in 
a  preceding  chapter.    A  road  parallel  to  the  Mississippi 

63 


64  WISCONSIN 

connected  the  two  transtentorial  lines  in  the  west.  At 
its  southwest  corner,  Dane  abutted  on  Lake  Koshkonong, 
whence  southward,  the  Rock  River  was  thought  to  be 
capable  of  improvement  for  navigation.  This  view 
proved  oversanguine ;  but  the  lands  along  the  river  and 
its  small  "Wisconsin  tributaries  promised  a  swift  develop- 
ment. A  vigorous  agricultural  population  occupied  them 
so  promptly  that,  by  1850,  the  county  of  Rock  had  a 
larger  acreage  of  improved  farm  lands,  and,  except 
Milwaukee  County,  a  larger  number  of  inhabitants  than 
any  other  in  the  state.  Every  cue  of  these  regions  had 
its  aspiring  villages,  each  with  its  singular  claim  to  the 
prize  of  the  capital  location, — a  score  or  more  in  all. 
Election  evaded  them  all  and  fell  upon  an  unimproved 
spot  in  the  midst  of  the  interior. 

It  is  not  altogether  a  bad  description  of  early  Madison 
to  say  that  it  stood  at  the  head  of  navigation  on  the 
Catfish.  The  Catfish — in  jest  and  song,  the  Yahara — is 
a  small,  very  crooked,  very  charming  stream,  highly 
navigable  for  Indian  dug-outs  and  craft  of  similar  ton- 
nage, which  meanders  diagonally  through  some  twenty 
miles  of  Dane  County  and  slips  into  the  Rock  a  few  miles 
below  Lake  Koshkonong.  Strung  along  its  upper  course, 
four  brilliant  lakes  gave  the  name — Indian  "Taychop- 
erah" — to  this  The  Four  Lakes  Region  of  Wisconsin. 
Between  the  two  uppermost  lakes,  Third  and  Fourth, 
or  Monona  and  Mendota  respectively,  upon  a  wooded 
ridge,  hour-glass  shaped,  from  half  a  mile  to  a  mile  in 
width,  and  three  miles  in  length,  intersected  at  the 
eastern  end  by  the  Catfish  and  indented  on  the  west  by 
still  another  lake  and  its  tributary  marshes,  almost  at 
the  center  of  Dane  County,  lay  the  hypothetical  city 
which  was  presented  to  the  territorial  legislature  under 
the  name  of  Madison.    Madison's  champion  was  a  terri- 


THE  TOWN  AND  THE  CAMPUS  65 

torial  judge,  James  Duane  Doty  by  name.  In  a  legend- 
ary "green  cloak,"  with  an  equally  legendary  shotgun 
slung  to  his  saddle,  Judge  Doty  had  threaded  the  Wis- 
consin wilderness  from  end  to  end.  His  practiced  eye 
had  alighted  upon  this  pearl  of  sites  and  he  had  singled 
it  out  for  the  choicest  place  in  the  state's  coronet  of 
cities.  It  was  due  chiefly  to  his  influence  that  the  bluff- 
browed  frontiersmen  at  Belmont  so  engagingly  fixed  the 
capital  of  their  state  in  a  nook  of  the  forest,  leagues 
from  any  road  and  yet  unmarred  by  human  habitation. 
A  diagram  of  the  proposed  town  based  on  meanders 
run  for  Judge  Doty  by  John  V.  Suydam,  District  Sur- 
veyor, was  certified  by  the  latter  at  Green  Bay,  October 
27,  1836, — two  days  after  the  legislature  convened  at 
Belmont.  The  plat  indicates,  as  the  town's  central 
feature,  a  square  nine  hundred  and  fourteen  feet  in 
diameter,  so  set  with  the  plan  of  the  streets  as  to  have 
the  appearance  of  a  diamond.  This  square  is  "donated 
for  public  buildings."  The  donors  were  Judge  Doty  and 
ex-Governor  Stevens  T.  Mason  of  Michigan,  who  owned, 
in  partnership,  over  twelve  hundred  acres  of  land  with- 
in the  limits  of  the  plat.  The  former  had  hurried  to 
Belmont  and  pushed  the  Madison  interest  with  pro- 
digious endeavors,  partly  from  genuine  love  for  the  spot 
and  partly  for  other  reasons  not  far  to  seek.  It  is  well 
known  that  deeds  to  Madison  corner  lots  were  among 
the  arguments  by  which  he  prevailed  with  the  pious 
founders.1  However,  the  necessity  of  compromising 
upon  some  central  location  and  the  desirability  of  stimu- 

1  At  least  one  noteworthy  exception  is  recorded  A  strong 
antipathy  existed  between  Judge  Doty  and  Henry  Dodge,  then 
Governor  of  the  territory,  and  there  were  fears  that  the  Governor 
might  veto  the  bill.  However,  Governor  Dodge  strongly  approved 
of  the  location  though  not  of  Judge  Doty's  methods,  and  he  rati- 
fied the  action  of  the  legislature.  Judge  Doty  waited  upon  the 
Governor,  expressed  his  appreciation  of  the  favor,  and  suavely 


66  WISCONSIN 

lating  settlement  in  the  interior  were  powerful  considera- 
tions ;  while,  among  rivals  in  its  immediate  neighborhood, 
Madison  was  easily  supreme  in  the  supposed  healthful- 
ness,  and  in  the  undeniable  elegance  of  its  site. 

The  nineteen-acre  "Square,"  above  whose  central  point 
more  and  more  stately  domes  were  to  succeed  each 
other,  topped  a  swell  of  land  near  the  Monona  shore  of 
the  isthmus.  Streets  designated  by  taking  off  the  sides 
of  the  square  and  erecting  perpendiculars  to  the  mid- 
dle of  each  side,  formed  the  basis  for  the  rectangular 
plan  of  the  town;  the  diagonals  of  the  square  pro- 
duced toward  the  points  of  the  compass,  lined  out  four 
additional  thoroughfares  which  intersected  the  rec- 
tangular plan  and  gave  to  the  town  its  abundance  of 
triangular  blocks  and  flatiron  corners.  The  plan  was 
further  diversified  by  partly  conforming  the  length- 
wise streets  along  each  side  of  the  town  to  the  contour 
of  the  lakes. 

The  diagonal  which  followed  the  section  line  due  west- 
ward from  the  capital  diamond  established  King  (pres- 
ent State)  Street.  In  this  direction,  the  land  tilts  grad- 
ually downward  almost  to  the  level  of  the  upper  lake, 
then  rises  abruptly  and,  at  exactly  a  mile 's  distance  from 
the  crown  of  the  capitol  hill,  attains  its  most  command- 
ing elevation  close  to  the  shores  of  Lake  Mendota.  The 
original  plat  of  the  town  ran  to  the  base  of  this  eminence 
which  soon  came  to  be  known  as  "College  Hill,"  from  a 
very  early  belief  that  it  would  be  chosen — as  in  due  time 
it  was — for  the  site  of  the  state  university. 

Madison  made  feeble  progress  during  its  territorial 

suggested  that  he  would  be  gratified  if  the  Governor  would  con- 
sent to  become  the  recipient  of  a  few  choice  lots.  Thereupon 
Governor  Dodge  is  said  to  have  risen  to  the  full  height  of  his 
splendid  presence  and  thundered  forth  the  following:  "Judge 
Doty,  sir,  when  I  need  any  lots  in  Madison,  sir,  I  will  call  upon 
you,  sir, — by  God,  sir!  " 


THE  TOWN  AND  THE  CAMPUS     67 

decade.  It  was  situated  in  the  midst  of  an  undeveloped 
region,  remote  from  the  chief  lines  of  communication. 
Much  of  the  area  in  its  immediate  neighborhood  was  in 
the  hands  of  land  speculators;  much  was  occupied  by- 
lakes  and  impenetrable  marsh  lands.  Its  location  was 
little  calculated  to  foster  commercial  development. 
Settlements  began  early  in  1837,  in  connection  with 
work  on  the  new  capitol  building;  but  after  two  years, 
the  town  had  accumulated  only  one  hundred  and  forty- 
six  inhabitants,  and  it  gained  but  seventy  more  in  the 
ensuing  five  years.  After  ten  years  of  existence  it  con- 
tained less  than  seven  hundred  people.  The  statehood 
agitation  in  1846,  the  arrival  of  the  telegraph  the  follow- 
ing year,  connecting  the  village  a  little  more  closely  with 
the  outer  world,  were  followed  in  1848  by  the  accom- 
plishment of  statehood  and  the  location  of  the  university, 
and  the  town  seemed  somewhat  more  secure  of  a  future. 
The  next  year,  Madison  acquired  a  vigorous  captain  of 
industry  in  L.  J.  Farwell.  He  set  up  mills  on  the  Cat- 
fish and  laid  out  a  large  addition  at  the  east  end  of  the 
town.  With  other  local  "colonels"  such  as  Fairchild, 
Mills,  and  Vilas,  he  pushed  business,  had  prepared  maps 
and  prospectuses  advertising  the  opportunities  of  the 
place,  and  gave  to  the  sleepy  hamlet  something  of  a 
spirit  of  enterprise.  In  three  years  preceding  1850,  the 
town  doubled  in  size,  and  this  period  was  followed  by  a 
lively  little  boom  which  brought  the  population  of  the 
"Capital  City"  in  the  next  half  dozen  years,  close  to 
seven  thousand. 

Hitherto,  Madison  had  existed  almost  solely  by  virtue 
of  its  official  character  as  the  seat  of  government. 
Everything  from  business  to  religious  worship  faced  the 
capitol  square  or  the  adjacent  streets.  The  residential 
district  was  nearby,  along  the  shore  of  lagoon-like  Lake 


68  WISCONSIN 

Monona.  Westward  and  northward  the  oaks  and  hazels 
held  undisputed  sway.  The  raw  little  town  and  its 
empty  backwoods  hotels  dreamed  away  the  summers  and 
each  winter  awoke  to  a  brief  period  of  crowded  life 
when  the  legislators  poured  in  for  their  annual  session. 
They  were  periods,  too,  when  the  town  trembled  for  its 
very  existence.  Then,  as  long  after,  there  was  rarely  a 
session  that  did  not  produce  a  more  or  less  formidable 
attempt  to  remove  the  capital  to  Milwaukee,  which  by 
1850  had  become  a  bustling  metropolis  of  twenty  thou- 
sand people,  equal  with  Detroit  and  temporarily  rivaling 
Chicago.  Fortunately,  a  majority  always  recognized 
that  the  metropolis  exerted  quite  enough  influence  upon 
legislation  across  the  safe  interval  of  eighty  miles. 

The  capital  seethed  with  political  machinations. 
Public  funds  and  institutions  were  generally  dealt 
with  in  the  light  of  a  division  of  spoils,  and  Madison,  as 
a  too  lucky  recipient  of  public  favors,  was  regarded  with 
spiteful  envy  by  rival  cities  whose  resources  were  more 
purely  industrial.  The  university,  after  its  establish- 
ment, became  a  conspicuous  target  for  malicious  re- 
prisals animated  by  this  sentiment  Forced  by  circum- 
stances into  the  character  of  a  local  institution,  it  had 
to  run  the  gauntlet  of  sectional  animosities  before  it 
could  win  its  place  as  an  organ  of  the  state  at  large. 

The  first  half-dozen  years  of  the  university  coincided 
with  Madison's  expansion  from  a  backwoods  village  to 
a  small  city  with  some  pretensions  to  the  advantages  of 
civilization,  one  of  which  was  the  university  itself.  The 
rise  of  the  first  building  on  "College  Hill"  in  1851,  the 
establishment  of  two  daily  newspapers  in  1852,  the 
opening  of  the  first  bank  in  1853,  the  arrival  of  the  rail- 
road from  Milwaukee  in  1854,  the  organization  of  the 
Board  of  Education  in  1855,  were  indexes  of  the  city's 


THE  TOWN  AND  THE  CAMPUS     69 

varied  progress  and  influences  toward  riper  times.  Dur- 
ing these  years  most  of  the  churches  were  built  which 
served  Madison  for  a  generation,  many  of  which  serve  it 
still.  Among  these  was  the  old  red  brick  of  the  Baptists, 
core  of  the  present  telephone  building,  erected  in  1853 
opposite  the  capitol  square.  Having  one  of  the  best 
audience  rooms  in  the  city,  it  sheltered  for  a  number 
of  years  most  of  the  public  exercises  of  the  university, 
including  those  of  its  first  commencement.  Its  base- 
ment was.  for  over  a  decade,  the  depository  of  the  col- 
lections of  the  Wisconsin  Historical  Society  which  had 
been  founded  in  1849  but  was  first  effectively  organized 
in  1853-54,  under  the  secretaryship  of  Lyman  C.  Draper, 
who  was  to  render  distinguished  services  in  that  capacity 
for  thirty-three  years.  About  the  same  time  an  asso- 
ciation, with  the  chancellor  of  the  university  as  its  first 
president,  undertook  the  promotion  of  a  city  library.  A 
theater  had  been  erected  by  popular  subscription,  and 
Madison  soon  found  a  place  in  the  itinerary  of  the  best 
traveling  companies.  The  winter  after  the  railroad  ar- 
rived, the  city  supported  a  lecture  course  which  brought 
to  it  such  well-known  writers  as  James  Russell  Lowell, 
Parke  Godwin,  John  G.  Saxe,  Horace  Greeley,  and 
Bayard  Taylor.  There  were  concerts  by  Ole  Bull  (1857) 
and  a  visit  and  educational  lecture  from  Horace  Mann 
(1858).  Madison  was  becoming  something  of  an  oasis 
in  the  intellectual  desert  of  the  frontier.  Families  who 
would  have  shrunk  from  the  social  privations  of  the 
average  western  village  were  now  attracted  by  the  fame 
of  its  beautiful  surroundings  and  its  prospects  as  a 
center  of  cultured  life. 

"  '  As  beautiful  as  Madison'  has  been  a  household  word 
among  tourists  in  the  Northwest,"  wrote  a  correspondent 
of  the  Chicago  Journal  in  1852.    The  year  before,  Cur- 


70  WISCONSIN 

tiss'  Western  Portraiture,  a  prospectus  of  the  Northwest, 
had  reached  its  most  grandiloquent  in  the  description  of 
Madison's  "bright  lakes,  fresh  groves,  and  rippling  rivu- 
lets, its  sloping  hills,  shady  vales,  and  flowery  meadow 
lawns  .  .  .  commingled,"  says  the  writer,  "in  greater 
profusion  and  disposed  in  more  picturesque  order  than 
we  have  ever  elsewhere  beheld."  More  responsible 
writers  were  equally  impressed,  if  not  so  abandoned  in 
expression.  "Madison,"  declared  Horace  Greeley  in  a 
letter  to  the  New  York  Tribune  (March,  1855),  "has 
the  most  magnificent  site  of  any  inland  town  I  ever  saw." 
Bayard  Taylor  almost  echoed  his  words  in  a  communi- 
cation to  the  same  journal  two  months  afterward. 
Horace  Mann,  like  the  rest,  was  most  struck  "by  the 
beauty  of  the  locality  in  general,  especially  that  of  the 
site  of  the  state  university."  The  laureate  seal  was 
felt  to  have  been  attached  when,  twenty  years  later, 
"The  Four  Lakes  of  Madison"  were  celebrated  by  a 
poet  who  had  never  seen  them,  the  amiable  Longfellow.1 
It  was  as  a  seat  of  learning  that  "the  fair  city  of  the 
West"  made  its  strongest  claim  on  the  imagination.  It 
would  not  be  easy  to  exaggerate  the  charms  of  the  uni- 
versity grounds  in  these  early  days.  The  accumulated 
structures  of  later  years  have  somewhat  overpowered 
their  surroundings.  Then,  the  two  or  three  buildings 
embowered  among  native  trees,  looked  off  upon  a  wide 
prospect  in  every  direction  and  met  the  eye  from  every 
point.  Eastward,  the  village  with  its  spires  pushing  up 
among  the  oaks  and,  beyond,  the  lakes  streaming  to  the 
horizon;  northward  lay  Mendota  encircled  by  its  lime- 

1  Lowell  too  wrote  of  it  in  his  letters ;  but  he  visited  the  place 
in  winter  and  was  chiefly  impressed  with  the  coldness  of  every- 
thing, especially  of  the  "three  cold  fishtails"  which  the  reception 
committee  successively  laid  in  his  hand.  It  is  a  passage  which 
rival  cities  that  have  upbraided  Madison  for  its  lack  of  social 
warmth  would  be  glad  to  find. 


THE  TOWN  AND  THE  CAMPUS     71 

stone  bluffs  and  wooded  hills,  the  largest  and  most 
gleaming  of  the  four  lakes,  with  a  unique  command  of 
color  and  remarkable  grace  of  outline.  The  spot  was 
one  to  woo  the  youthful  heart.  Something  of  this  early- 
charm  throws  its  spell  over  the  closing  pages  of  John 
Muir's  Autobiography.  Describing  the  day  he  left  "on 
a  botanizing  and  geologizing  excursion  which  has  lasted 
for  over  fifty  years,"  he  concludes,  "From  the  top  of 
the  hill  on  the  north  side  of  Mendota  I  gained  a  last 
wistful  lingering  view  of  the  beautiful  university 
grounds  and  buildings  where  I  had  spent  so  many 
hungry  and  happy  and  hopeful  days.  There  with 
streaming  eyes  I  bade  my  blessed  Alma  Mater  fare- 
well." From  that  idealized  reflection,  shimmering  in 
eyes  which,  since  the  recorded  day,  had  roved  over  many 
sublimer  sweeps  of  mountain  and  of  glacier,  we  gain  a 
fleeting  impression  of  the  campus  at  Madison  as  it  lies 
in  the  recollection  of  those  who  have  loved  it  in  their 
youth. 

The  working  basis  for  the  university  campus  was  a 
quarter  section  of  land  which  had  been  selected  by  James 
Duane  Doty  for  Aaron  Vanderpool  of  New  York  in  1836 
and  by  the  latter  purchased  from  the  government,  for  a 
dollar  and  a  quarter  an  acre.1  At  the  first  and  ap- 
parently the  only  meeting  of  the  territorial  "Board  of 
Visitors,"  December  1,  1838,  John  Catlin,  secretary  of 
the  board,  acting  as  agent  for  Vanderpool,  proposed  a 
donation  of  certain  parts  of  this  land  to  the  projected 
university.  As  Vanderpool  had  never  seen  the  land, 
there  is  little  doubt  that  the  idea  of  thus  enhancing  the 
value  of  his  acres  originated  with  the  agent  Catlin.  The 
latter  continuing  to  reside  in  Madison  was  probably  in- 

1  Technically  described  as  "  the  N.  W.  %  of  sec.  No  23,  T.  7  N. 
of  R.  9  E.  (except  block  9  of  the  village  of  Madison) ." 


72  WISCONSIN 

fluential  in  keeping  the  tradition  alive.  At  any  rate,  the 
popular  fancy  had  long  dedicated  the  spot  to  education, 
bestowing  upon  it  the  nickname  of  College  Hill.  The 
board  of  regents,  at  its  first  meeting,  appointed  a  com- 
mittee to  find  out  the  conditions  upon  which  the  property 
might  be  secured,  and  this  committee  was  able  to  lay 
before  the  second  meeting  a  definite  proposition  from 
Catlin  and  Williamson,  Madison  agents  of  Vanderpool. 
The  owner  had  now  held  the  land  for  twelve  years  and, 
probably  disappointed  in  the  progress  which  the  city 
had  made,  he  expressed  his  unwillingness  to  sell  in  par- 
cels, but  offered  the  whole  tract  at  fifteen  dollars  per 
acre,  plus  a  year's  taxes  and  the  agent's  commission. 
The  regents  promptly  closed  with  this  offer  and  ap- 
pointed a  committee  to  complete  the  purchase  and  to 
secure  such  other  parcels  as  were  necessary  for  rounding 
out  the  site.  The  charge  was  directly  executed.  By 
pledging  its  credit  for  something  less  than  twenty-five 
hundred  dollars  the  university  became  possessed  of  157% 
acres  of  choice  land  at  the  end  of  the  village  of  Mad- 
ison. 

The  portion  of  the  purchase  which  was  deemed  un- 
necessary for  the  college  site  was  "laid  out  in  174  village 
lots  and  12  five-acre  or  out  lots"  and  sold,  part  of  the 
proceeds  being  applied  to  canceling  the  debt  on  the 
whole.  The  regents  justifiably  plumed  themselves  upon 
this  turn ;  but  eventually  much  of  the  property  thus  dis- 
posed of  had  to  be  repurchased  by  the  university  at 
heart-breaking  advances  in  valuation.  Exchanges  were 
effected  with  the  real  estate  firm  of  Delaplaine  and 
Burdick  between  certain  lots  held  by  them  and  parcels 
of  equal  value  chosen  by  disinterested  commissioners 
from  the  Vanderpool  purchase.  A  few  lots  held  by 
other  owners  were  bought  outright.    By  these  processes 


THE  TOWN  AND  THE  CAMPUS  73 

the  university  secured  a  plot  of  about  forty  acres,1 
bounded  on  the  north  by  Lake  Mendota,  on  the  east 
by  the  line  of  present  Park  Street,  on  the  south  by  the 
old  Mineral  Point  Road,  now  University  Avenue,  and 
on  the  west  by  the  drive  to  be  opened  from  the  last- 
named  street  to  the  lakeshore.  These  are  the  outlines 
of  the  present  "Upper  Campus,"  still  the  central  build- 
ing spot  of  the  university.  The  "Lower  Campus"  and 
all  the  university  holdings  east  of  Park  Street  were 
combined  out  of  village  lots ;  these,  as  well  as  the  broad 
sweep  of  hills  and  lowlands  along  the  lakeshore  to  the 
west,  have  been  acquired  by  miscellaneous  transactions 
scattered  through  later  years.  The  founders  obviously 
thought  that  in  their  provision  for  its  site  they  were 
amply  anticipating  any  development  of  the  university; 
but  glowing  as  were  their  sentiments,  this,  like  every 
other  numerical  measure  of  their  conceptions,  reveals 
how  faint  were  their  powers  of  estimating  the  future. 

To  make  this  forty-acre  hill  habitable  for  learning  was 
the  important  material  task  which  fell  to  Chancellor 
Lathrop  on  his  arrival  in  the  autumn  of  1849.  The 
regents  in  their  first  report  to  the  legislature  had  stated 
that  they  were  uncertain  what  portion  of  the  university 
income  might  safely  be  expended  for  building  purposes, 
and  they  had  recommended  that  "one  building  of  mod- 
erate dimensions"  to  cost  about  $3,500  should  be  erected 
"on  a  site  intermediate  between  the  capitol  and  college 
hill."  Their  object  was  to  use  this  building  temporarily 
as  quarters  for  the  preparatory  academy  which  they 
purposed  to  start  going  immediately,  and  later,  to  con- 
vert it  into  a  demonstration  school  in  connection  with 

1  The  area  mentioned  in  all  the  early  reports  is  50  acres  In 
a  summary  of  resources  published  in  1856,  however,  the  area  of 
the  campus  is  estimated  at  43  acres,  and  still  later  we  find  it 
consisting  of   a   fraction   over   40   acres. 


74  WISCONSIN 

the  normal  department  which  was  one  of  their  early- 
dreams.  But  the  legislature  of  1849  doing  nothing  in 
this  direction  and  the  citizens  of  Madison  having  pro- 
vided a  building  for  the  temporary  use  of  the  prepara- 
tory department,  the  project  was  abandoned  in  favor  of 
a  more  ambitious  design. 

At  the  third  meeting  of  the  board  in  November,  '49, 
the  chancellor  was  made  chairman  of  all  its  important 
committees,  including  a  building  committee.  His  asso- 
ciates on  this  committee  were  Simeon  Mills  and  Nathaniel 
W.  Dean  of  Madison.  After  a  careful  study  of  the  site, 
an  arrangement  of  grounds  and  buildings  was  devised 
which  represented  in  the  main  the  ideas  of  the  chan- 
cellor and  of  J.  F.  Rague,  architect,  who  received  one 
hundred  and  sixty-five  dollars  for  his  estimates  and 
drawings.  The  salient  features  of  the  plan  were  as 
follows:  1,  "A  main  edifice"  (the  phraseology  is  char- 
acteristic) at  the  summit  of  the  hill,  "fronting  towards 
the  Capitol";  2,  "An  avenue  two  hundred  and  forty 
feet  wide,  extending  from  the  main  edifice  to  the  east 
line  of  the  grounds  and  bordered  by  double  rows  of 
trees";  3,  "Four  dormitory  buildings,  two  on  each  side 
of  the  above-mentioned  avenue,  lower  down  the  hill,  on 
a  line  fronting  toward  the  town";  4,  a  carriageway 
"flanking  each  of  the  extreme  dormitory  buildings";  5, 
professors'  lots  "between  the  north  carriageway  and  the 
lake,  and  between  the  south  carriageway  and  Mineral 
Point  road."  The  compact  little  college  herein  provided 
for,  with  its  dormitories  for  two  hundred  and  fifty-six 
students  and  its  comfortable  rows  of  professors'  houses 
fringing  the  campus  on  either  hand,  was  destined  to 
remain  unrealized.  The  professors'  lots  have  gone  to 
other  uses.  Early  prints  of  the  university  campus,  with 
the  anticipative  pretentiousness  of  those  days,  continued 


THE  TOWN  AND  THE  CAMPUS  75 

to  picture  four  dormitories  "ona  line,  fronting  towards 
the  town";  but  only  two  were  built.  These  and  the 
"main  edifice,"  often  altered  and  at  last  sheathed  in  the 
great  wings  of  University  Hall,  with  the  "avenue"  or 
central  lawn  of  the  Upper  Campus  pitching  eastward 
between  its  "double  rows"  of  elms,1  venerable  now  and 
broadbranched,  are  the  chief  vestiges  of  the  original 
design. 

On  the  afternoon  of  Chancellor  Lathrop's  inaugura- 
tion, the  regents  reported  to  the  legislature  the  plan  of 
the  building  committee  and  represented  the  urgent  need 
for  dormitories  if  the  university  was  to  begin  its  proper 
work.  Despairing,  with  good  reason,  of  an  appropria- 
tion, they  asked  and  were  granted  a  loan  from  the  School 
Fund  of  $25,000  to  be  repaid,  when  sufficient  lands 
should  be  sold,  out  of  the  income  of  the  University 
Fund.2  With  the  proceeds  of  the  loan,  one  dormitory 
was  erected  and  the  foundations  were  laid  for  a  second. 

North  Hall,  begun  during  the  summer  of  1850,  was 
finished  in  the  autumn  of  1851.  Primarily  a  dormitory 
for  students,  the  new  building  was  arranged  in  two 
stacks,  each  warmed  by  a  hot-air  furnace.  Many  years 
later  (1865),  stoves  were  substituted  and  the  students 
compelled  to  provide  their  own  wood.  On  the  fourth 
floor  were  the  public  rooms,  six  in  number.  The  first 
three  floors  were  occupied  by  twenty-four  suites,  each 
consisting  of  a  study  and  one  or  two  bedrooms,  the  whole 
estimated  to  accommodate  about  sixty-five  students. 
Later,  we  hear  of  ninety  students  being  sheltered  in 
this  building.  It  continued  in  use  as  a  men 's  dormitory 
for  upwards  of  thirty  years.     The  Science  Hall  con- 

1  They  were  planted  in  1851  and  1852.  Of  the  seven  hundred 
elms  put  out  at  that  time  one-third  died  during  the  next  two 
seasons  and  were  replaced,  probably  in  1854. 

2  It  will  be  remembered  that  this  paralleled  the  procedure  of 
Michigan    See  ante,  p   45. 


76  WISCONSIN 

flagration  of  1884  compelled  it  to  be  converted  to  class- 
room uses  and  never  since  has  the  university  been  able 
to  outstrip  the  demand  for  public  rooms  sufficiently  to 
enter  upon  the  provision  of  men's  quarters.  For  four 
years,  North  Hall  was  the  sole  "university  edifice." 

Meantime  the  foundations  of  South  Hall  had  yawned 
to  the  snows  of  three  Wisconsin  winters,  "without  a 
superstructure."  Finally,  after  repeated  appeals,  a 
further  loan  of  $15,000  was  sanctioned  by  the  legisla- 
ture; but  it  was  not  until  the  autumn  of  1855  that  the 
building  was  ready  for  occupancy.  The  north  half  of 
the  building  was  arranged  into  sixteen  studies  with  bed- 
rooms after  the  plan  of  North  Hall.  The  north  half  of 
the  south  stack  contained  four  "public  rooms,"  thirty- 
six  by  twenty-three  feet,  to  wit,  a  laboratory  on  the 
first  floor,  a  cabinet  of  natural  history  on  the  second, 
then  a  "philosophical  chamber,"  and,  on  the  fourth 
floor,  the  embryo  library.  The  south  end  of  the  build- 
ing was  fitted  up  for  the  members  of  the  faculty  and 
their  families,  and  they  immediately  took  possession. 
There  was  a  large  dining-room  or  "mess  hall"  on  the 
first  floor  where  students  were  received  for  board,  on 
the  club  plan.  This  building  had  been  designed  as  the 
home  of  the  normal  department  and  previous  to  the 
erection  of  Ladies  Hall  it  actually  became  for  a  time 
the  headquarters  of  the  Female  College. 

The  two  dormitories  were  identical  in  dimensions  and 
external  appearance.  They  were  four-story  stone  build- 
ings, sternly  rectangular,  with  a  perfunctory  arrange- 
ment of  doors  and  windows,  without  pretense  of  relief 
or  ornamentation,  and  with  no  remarkable  beauty  of 
proportions.  Yet  they  were  honestly  built  and  have 
stood  well.  Their  vine-clad  walls  embody  as  much  of 
venerableness  as  the  university  possesses  in  physical 


THE  TOWN  AND  THE  CAMPUS  77 

form.  Like  the  "main  edifice"  a  little  later,  and  the 
buildings  of  the  seventies,  they  were  constructed  out  of 
the  native  limestone,  the  nobility  of  which  as  a  building 
material  was  highly  extolled  by  Bayard  Taylor  after  his 
glimpse  of  Madison  in  1855.  The  taste  of  later  decades 
has  sometimes  patronized  them,  while  committing  expen- 
sive atrocities  in  other  materials;  but  they  have  come 
into  their  own  in  recent  years.  On  an  ampler  scale  and 
with  more  geniality  of  design,  but  of  similar  materials, 
the  buildings  of  the  central  campus  will  one  day  make 
an  harmonious  group  of  which  these  will  be  a  part. 

Six  years  had  been  consumed  in  securing  the  first  two 
buildings,  and  Chancellor  Lathrop's  ten  years'  en- 
deavors drew  to  an  harassed  end  before  the  third  came 
into  use.  Could  the  events  of  the  next  few  years  have 
been  foreseen  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  erection  of  the 
third  building  would  have  been  postponed;  but  at  the 
time  it  was  projected,  the  institution,  though  in  rough 
water,  seemed  to  its  friends  to  be  escaping  from  the 
shallows  in  which  it  had  been  launched.  The  bulk  of  the 
landgrants  had  been  disposed  of  and  thus  far  the  ex- 
pansion of  the  little  college  had  more  than  kept  pace 
with  the  increase  of  its  resources.  By  the  autumn  of 
1853  all  the  college  classes  were  represented,  albeit  by 
a  few  students  only.  "The  Faculty  is  now  full''  an- 
nounced the  catalogue  of  1855 ;  it  boasted  six  professors 
and  a  tutor.  The  following  summer,  normal  and  agri- 
cultural classes  were  run  for  the  benefit  of  teachers  in 
the  public  schools  and  were  thought  to  portend  depart- 
ments devoted  to  these  subjects ;  medical  and  law  facul- 
ties were  organized  on  paper.  The  aggregate  of  stu- 
dents in  attendance  rose  from  one  hundred  fifteen  to  one 
hundred  sixty-nine  in  a  single  year.  The  time  seemed 
ripe  for  the  "main  edifice."    Again,  the  legislature  was 


78  WISCONSIN 

importuned  and  granted  (1857)  a  loan  of  $40,000,  this 
time  from  the  principal  of  the  University  Fund.  Con- 
struction began  the  following  summer  and,  after  many 
financial  difficulties,  "Old  Main  Hall"  was  brought  to 
completion  in  the  summer  of  '59.  The  trio  of  which  it 
was  the  last  were  all  the  buildings  of  the  university 
down  to  1870,  a  period  of  more  than  twenty  years.  It 
had  gone  in  debt  for  them  all  and  the  day  of  reckoning 
was  at  hand.  But,  be  this  as  it  might,  the  end  of  the 
first  decade  found  the  university  in  possession  of  build- 
ings that  were  to  be  adequate  for  some  time  to  come. 
Had  not  the  contracts  for  the  central  structure  been  let 
before  the  hard  times  of  '57  could  be  foreseen,  it  is 
certain  that  no  further  building  would  have  been  done 
until  after  the  war.  In  that  event,  it  would  have  been 
necessary  to  vacate  the  dormitories  for  classes  and  it  is 
unlikely  that  room  would  have  been  found  for  the 
"female"  department  which  sprang  up  during  the  war. 
At  the  same  time  the  income  available  for  running  ex- 
penses would  have  been  annually  about  three  thousand 
dollars  larger.  It  is  idle  to  speculate  as  to  what  the 
effect  of  these  changes  would  have  been,  but  it  is  clear 
that  the  history  of  the  university  during  the  next  dozen 
years  must  have  been  vitally  different  from  what  it  was. 
University  Hall  has  undergone  more  frequent  and 
radical  alterations  than  any  other  building  on  the 
campus ;  its  ventilation  proved  to  be  bad  and  its  interior 
arrangement  turned  out  to  be  ill-suited  to  its  objects. 
Some  of  the  changes  will  be  recorded  in  their  place;  to 
enumerate  them  would  be  to  sketch  in  outline  the  prog- 
ress of  the  university.  Though  changed  by  time  and 
fate,  the  "main  edifice"  still  holds  its  place  on  the  brow 
of  the  hill,  "fronting  towards  the  Capitol,"  the  eye  of 
the  campus, — and  of  the  state. 


IV 
THE  DAYS  OF  THE  CHANCELLORS 

The  history  of  university  organization  takes  us  back 
once  more  to  the  foundation  of  the  state  government. 
The  constitution,  ratified  by  the  people  of  the  state,  had 
ordained  a  university,  specified  its  location,  laid  down  a 
general  principle  for  the  use  of  its  federal  lands,  and 
excluded  sectarian  instruction.  The  legislature  must 
embody  these  directions  in  suitable  enactments  and  pro- 
vide for  their  execution.  The  board  of  regents,  to  whom 
the  last  function  was  intrusted,  must  denote  in  greater 
detail  the  activities  of  the  institution  and  create  a 
faculty.  The  faculty,  in  turn,  must  create  the  actual 
life  of  the  university  by  securing  students  and  directing 
their  energies  in  a  proper  manner.  Nor  would  the  circle 
of  operations  be  complete  until  the  university,  finally, 
should  commend  itself  to  the  approval  of  the  voters  of 
the  state.  Obviously,  the  administration  of  an  institution 
so  founded  involved  adjustments  among  a  large  number 
of  very  differently  constituted  bodies  of  men,  and  pro- 
vided liberal  opportunity  for  mistakes  and  failures  in 
the  distribution  of  powers  and  in  the  discharge  of  duties. 

The  legislature  which  met  at  Madison  from  June  5 
to  August  21,  1848,  was  an  extremely  busy  one,  having 
upon  its  hands  the  entire  organization  of  the  state. 
The  fundamental  statutes  necessary  to  carry  the  consti- 
tution into  effect,  the  codification  of  the  territorial  laws, 
the  revision  of  court  procedure,  the  establishment  of 

79 


80  WISCONSIN 

public  institutions,  the  chartering  of  villages,  the  laying 
out  of  roads  and  other  internal  improvements,  all  craved 
attention  in  a  pioneer  state  eager  to  attract  more  settlers. 
There  was,  also,  much  crowding  forward  of  private  in- 
terests and  of  sectional  ambitions.  A  strong  determina- 
tion to  keep  the  state  free  from  debt  and  to  hold  taxes 
at  the  lowest  possible  point  discouraged  expenditures  of 
every  kind.  It  had  been  forcibly  borne  home  upon  the 
legislature,  too,  that  the  people  of  the  state  expected  a 
short  session.  Notwithstanding  all  these  adverse  condi- 
tions the  claims  of  education  were  not  neglected.  The 
common  school  system  was  naturally  considered  of  prime 
importance ;  but  the  university  received  a  reasonable 
amount  of  attention,  both  in  committee  and  upon  the 
floor  of  the  houses.  As  finally  approved  by  the  gov- 
ernor, July  26th,  the  university  act  extended  to  sixteen 
clauses,  several  of  which  had  been  added  as  amendments 
in  the  course  of  debate ;  the  law  specified  with  consider- 
able definiteness  the  scope  and  character  of  the  projected 
institution. 

The  government  of  the  university  was  vested  in  a 
board  of  regents,  thirteen  in  number,  of  whom  twelve 
were  to  be  elected  by  the  legislature,  these  to  elect  a 
chancellor  who  should  be,  ex  officio,  president  of  the 
board.  The  disposition  of  the  legislature  to  keep  the 
university  under  close  surveillance  was  further  mani- 
fested in  provisions  that  the  salaries  of  the  chancellor, 
professors,  and  tutors,  and  the  plans  and  estimates  of 
buildings  should  be  submitted  to  the  legislature  for  ap- 
proval or  disapproval,  and  that  an  annual  report  of  the 
board  should  be  made  directly  to  that  body. 

The  question  of  the  method  by  which  the  regents 
should  be  chosen  was  one  of  those  which  brought  on 
keen  debate.    The  obvious  alternatives  were  appointment 


THE  DAYS  OP  THE  CHANCELLORS        81 

by  the  governor  and  election  by  popular  vote.  The  first 
method  was  in  vogue  in  Michigan  at  the  time  and  was 
that  adopted  by  Wisconsin  when  the  university  was 
reorganized  eighteen  years  later,  though  Michigan,  mean- 
while, had  shifted  to  the  method  of  popular  elections. 
A  Senate  amendment  which  was  adopted  into  the  first 
organic  act  discarded  both  methods  for  election  by  joint 
session  of  the  legislature.  Pressure  of  business,  how- 
ever, prevented  the  first  legislature  from  discharging 
the  duty  which  it  had  imposed  upon  itself,  though  the 
two  houses  concurred  in  a  resolution  to  meet  for  this 
purpose  on  the  penultimate  day  of  the  session.  The  rush 
at  the  close  of  the  session  is  well  indicated  by  the  fact 
that  the  houses  convened  for  their  last  meeting  at  five 
o'clock  in  the  morning  to  enable  the  members  to  catch 
the  noon  stages  for  home.  On  this  final  morning,  a 
supplementary  bill,  empowering  the  governor  to  fill 
vacancies  in  the  board  of  regents  was  introduced  by 
Senator  Mills  of  Madison  and  crowded  to  its  passage. 
From  Governor  Dewey's  second  message  we  learn  that 
he  availed  himself  of  this  authority  to  fill  the  entire 
board.  Through  this  unusual  procedure  it  came  about 
that  the  first  regents  of  the  university  were  appointed, 
like  their  successors  since  the  reorganization  of  1866,  by 
the  governor  of  the  state. 

The  appointments  were  conscientiously  made,  without 
regard  to  party,  from  among  the  ablest  men  in  the 
various  sections  of  the  state.  At  the  head  of  the  list 
in  order  of  ability  should  be  placed  Edward  V.  Whiton, 
soon  afterward  elected  chief  justice  of  the  state.  He 
attended  no  meeting  of  the  board,  however,  and  soon 
resigned.  His  place  was  filled  by  the  election  of  his 
fellow-townsman,  A.  Hyatt  Smith,  a  lawyer  and  pro- 
moter at  Janesville.    The  latter  was  relatively  constant 


82  WISCONSIN 

in  attendance  and  participated  energetically  in  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  board.  Another  distinguished  appointee 
was  Rufus  King,  editor,  since  1845,  of  the  Milwaukee 
Sentinel,  which  was  a  Whig  paper,  prominently  hostile 
to  Governor  Dewey  in  politics.  He  was  a  West  Point 
graduate  and  came  of  illustrious  family.  His  father, 
Charles  King,  a  prominent  New  York  journalist,  became, 
in  1849,  president  of  Columbia;  his  grandfather  was  the 
famous  New  York  statesman  whose  name  he  bore.  Gen- 
eral King  was  one  of  the  most  cultivated  men  who  had 
joined  fortunes  with  the  young  state.  He  attended  the 
first  meeting  of  the  board  and  the  important  series  of 
meetings  held  in  January,  1850,  at  the  time  of  Chan- 
cellor Lathrop's  inauguration.  We  owe  to  his  pen  our 
best  account  of  that  occasion. 

The  southwestern  portion  of  the  state  was  represented 
by  John  H.  Rountree  of  Platteville  and  Cyrus  Wood- 
man of  Mineral  Point.  The  latter,  a  native  of  Maine  and 
a  graduate  of  Bowdoin  College,  was  not  without  intel- 
lectual interests.1  He  appears,  however,  to  have  been 
engrossed  with  private  affairs  while  in  Wisconsin  and 
attended  only  one  meeting  of  the  board.  He  was  a  law 
partner  of  C.  C.  Washburn  whose  signal  services  to  the 
university  belong  to  a  later  epoch.  A  pioneer  merchant 
and  banker,  Woodman  soon  amassed  a  competence,  and 
returned  to  the  East  to  enjoy  it.  "Major"  Rountree,  a 
pioneer  of  an  earlier  type,  was  a  Kentuckian  whose 
parents  had  emigrated  from  Virginia,  who  had,  in  turn, 
while  still  a  youth,  departed  from  Illinois  and  had  then 
entered  Wisconsin  as  early  as  1827.  He  was  the  "grand 
old  man"  of  the  lead  region,  a  veteran  of  the  Black 
Hawk  War,  and  had  been  constantly  in  public  service 

1  See  below,  p.  213,  for  the  gift  of  the  Cyrus  Woodman  Astro- 
nomical Library. 


THE  DAYS  OF  THE  CHANCELLORS        83 

during  territorial  days.  Elected  treasurer  of  the  board 
at  its  first  meeting,  he  resigned  at  the  second  "on  ac- 
count of  the  distance  of  his  residence  from  Madison." 
Outside  the  Madison  members,  however,  none  of  the  early- 
board  were  more  constant  in  attendance.  Others  who, 
during  the  first  years,  frequently  helped  the  Madison 
members  to  make  out  a  quorum  were  Hiram  Barber  of 
Dodge  County  and  John  Bannister  of  Fond  du  Lac. 
Both  were  influential  business  men  of  their  respective 
regions  and  had  held  public  office.  Both,  moreover,  were 
among  those  who  drew  six  year  terms  at  the  first  meet- 
ing of  the  board,  so  that  they  were  in  the  service  of 
the  university  throughout  the  period  of  organization. 
Barber,  like  Whiton,  King,  Rountree,  and  Root,  had 
served  in  the  Constitutional  Convention;  he  had  been 
one  of  Dewey's  rivals  for  the  democratic  nomination  for 
governor.  Bannister  was  the  Free  Soil  nominee  for 
lieutenant  governor  in  1849. 

Four  of  the  appointees  were  residents  of  Madison. 
Alexander  L.  Collins  was  a  lawyer,  a  native  of  New 
York,  who  had  emigrated  to  Ohio  in  1833  and  to  Wis- 
consin in  1842.  Like  many  self-made  men  of  that  day, 
he  had  taught  school  for  a  time.  In  Wisconsin  he  soon 
became  prominent  on  the  Whig  side.  He  ran  against 
Governor  Dewey  in  1849,  was  twice  the  Whig  candi- 
date for  the  United  States  senate,  and  rose,  in  later 
years,  to  a  high  place  in  the  judiciary.  He  was  the  first 
chairman  of  the  executive  committee  of  the  board  of 
regents.  Thomas  W.  Sutherland  was  another  Madison 
lawyer,  one  of  the  earliest  settlers  in  the  village,  first 
president  of  the  village  corporation  and  for  many  years 
United  States  district  attorney.  During  the  initial 
steps  toward  the  organization  of  the  university,  he  served 
on  the  most  important  committees  and  was  elected  treas- 


84  WISCONSIN 

urer  upon  the  resignation  of  Major  Rountree  in  Jan- 
uary, 1849.  The  following  spring  he  took  the  overland 
route  to  California  and  never  returned  to  the  state. 
His  place  on  the  board  of  regents  was  filled  by  Nathaniel 
W.  Dean,  a  Madison  merchant,  and  Simeon  Mills  was 
elected  treasurer  in  his  stead.1 

Simeon  Mills  was  one  of  the  strenuous  pioneers  with 
whom  migration  was  well-nigh  an  inheritance  of  the 
blood ;  in  whom  native  boldness  and  acumen  supplied  the 
place,  not  only  of  initial  capital,  but  of  early  education. 
Carried,  as  a  child,  from  Connecticut  to  northeastern 
Ohio,  he  barely  waited  for  manhood  before  striking  out 
alone  toward  the  frontier,  reached  Wisconsin  the  autumn 
it  became  a  territory  and,  the  following  spring,  stepped 
from  an  Indian  canoe  upon  the  site  of  Madison  within  a 
few  hours  of  the  gang  of  men  who  had  come  to  erect  in 
the  forest  the  capital  of  the  state.  From  the  position  of 
clerk  in  a  forest  grocery  and  carrier  of  the  post  on  forest 
trails  he  rose  rapidly  to  be  one  of  the  chief  promoters  of 
the  town  and  to  fill  responsible  places  in  the  public 
service.  He  was  in  charge  of  the  territorial  treasury 
when  Wisconsin  was  admitted  to  the  Union  and,  as  the 
Madison  representative  in  the  first  State  Senate,  was 
active  in  pushing  university  legislation.  Besides  serving 
for  seven  years  as  treasurer  of  the  board  of  regents,  he 
was  a  member  of  the  first  executive  committee,  and  acted 
as  the  board's  agent  in  financing,  platting,  and  selling 
off  the  "university  addition"  to  the  village.  Madison's 
fourth  representative  on  the  board  was  Julius  T.  Clark, 
editor  of  the  Express,  a  Whig  paper.  He  was  the  first 
secretary  of  the  board.     The  record  of  its  proceedings 

1  On  the  university  roster  Mills  stands  as  first  treasurer  of  the 
university,  though,  in  reality,  as  appears  above,  he  was  the  third. 
He  was,  however,  the  first  that  handled  any  funds. 


THE  DAYS  OF  THE  CHANCELLORS        85 

in  his  clear  hand  are  more  legible  at  this  day  than  most 
of  the  printed  documents  contemporary  with  them. 
His  term  as  regent  expired  in  two  years;  but  he 
served  as  a  paid  secretary  until  1856,  drawing  all 
the  warrants  of  the  board.  He  also  filled,  for  a  time, 
the  nominal  office  of  librarian,  but  was  soon  suc- 
ceeded by  Horace  A.  Tenney,1  and  he  by  Professor 
Sterling. 

There  remains  for  final  mention 2  the  sole  member  of 
the  board  who  could  lay  claim  to  special  expertness  in 
educational  matters.  Eleazer  Root  has  been  described, 
by  a  contemporary,  as  "a  gentleman  of  distinguished 
abilities,  highly  educated,  dignified  in  address,  of  earnest 
and  honest  purpose,  to  whom  the  educational  field  was  in 
his  early  life,  of  all  others  the  one  most  attractive."  He 
was,  with  the  exception  of  Major  Rountree,  the  most 
venerable  member  of  the  board,  forty-six  years  of  age. 
After  graduating  from  Williams  College  in  1821,  he  had 
studied  for  the  bar  and  had  practiced  half  a  dozen  years 
in  his  native  state  of  New  York.  He  had  then  passed 
about  fifteen  years  in  Virginia.  It  will  be  remembered 
that  these  were  the  years  when  Virginia  was  making 
vigorous  advances  in  collegiate  education.  Whether  the 
coincidence  is  significant,  it  is  difficult  to  know.  At  any 
rate,  it  was  in  Virginia  that  Root  became  interested  in 
educational   pursuits.     Coming  to   Prairieville    (Wau- 

1  H.  A.  Tenney  was  another  Madison  journalist.  Though  not 
until  several  years  after  a  member  of  the  board  of  regents,  he  was 
one  of  the  university's  earliest  benefactors  and  warmest  de- 
fenders. Authorized  by  the  board,  at  its  first  meeting,  to  begin 
the  formation  of  a  university  "  cabinet "  or  museum,  he  gave 
gratuitous  service  in  this  direction  for  a  number  of  years,  and 
enlisted  the  aid  of  numerous  collectors,  of  whom  the  most  im- 
portant was  Increase  A  Lapham,  a  young  civil  engineer  of  Mil- 
waukee, afterward  associated  with  the  geological  survey  of  the 
state. 

2  Concerning  Henry  Bryan,  who  attended  only  the  first  meeting 
of  the  board,  I  have  been  unable  to  secure  any  information. 


86  WISCONSIN 

kesha)  in  1845,  he  immediately  secured  a  college  charter 
for  Prairieville  Academy  and,  the  following  year,  opened 
Carroll  College,  with  himself  and  John  W.  Sterling  as 
professors.  He  was  the  most  influential  member  of  the 
Second  Constitutional  Convention  in  matters  pertaining 
to  education,  and  "the  author,  substantially,  of  the  edu- 
cation article  in  the  state  constitution,  as  well  as  of  that 
providing  for  the  founding  and  organization  of  the  state 
university."  The  choice  of  both  parties  for  state  super- 
intendent of  public  instruction,  he  discharged  the  duties 
of  that  post  during  the  first  four  years  of  statehood.  It 
is  worthy  of  record  that  he  presided  over  the  meeting  in 
January,  1849,  at  which  the  State  Historical  Association 
was  organized.  The  first  act  of  the  board  of  regents  was 
to  elect  him  president  pro  tern.;  he  largely  directed  the 
proceedings  of  the  board  until  the  arrival  of  the  chan- 
cellor and  formulated  its  earliest  reports  to  the  legis- 
lature. As  chairman  of  a  preliminary  committee,  he 
probably  drew  the  series  of  resolutions  in  blank  upon 
which  the  first  steps  of  the  university  were  based.  It 
was  upon  his  motion  that  the  name  of  his  colleague,  John 
"W.  Sterling,  was  inserted  in  the  resolution  providing  for 
the  appointment  of  a  university  professor  who  should  be 
temporarily  in  charge  of  a  preparatory  department.  He 
was  himself  appointed,  in  the  terms  of  another  of  these 
resolutions,  "an  agent  to  procure  information  in  regard 
to  the  manner  in  which  the  university  should  be  organ- 
ized, and  to  report  drafts  of  practical  plans  for  univer- 
sity buildings;  and  authorized, — if  he  shall  deem  it 
necessary,  to  visit  the  University  of  Michigan  at  the 
expense  of  the  Board."  By  reason  of  his  official  posi- 
tion, he  was  virtually  a  resident  member  and  could  be 
relied  upon  for  attendance  at  meetings.  His  name 
begins  the  notable  list  of  Williams  College  men  who 


THE  DAYS  OF  THE  CHANCELLORS        87 

have  been  conspicuous  in  the  service  of  the  University 
of  Wisconsin.1 

The  first  board  of  regents,  then,  was  carefully  chosen 
from  amoug  the  best  men  in  the  state,  yet  few  of  them 
had  any  special  acquaintance  with  the  problems  of  edu- 
cation; few  enjoyed  a  collegiate  training  and  not  all 
of  these  were  able,  or  saw  fit,  to  render  actual  service. 
The  first  call  brought  together  ten  of  the  twelve  mem- 
bers of  the  board,  and  the  second,  eight;  at  the  third 
meeting  President  Root  and  Chancellor  Lathrop  ad- 
dressed one  another  in  rounded  Websterian  periods, 
surrendering  and  accepting  the  chair,  in  the  presence  of 
six  other  gentlemen.  The  inauguration  of  the  chan- 
cellor in  January,  1850,  was  a  gallant  occasion  to  which 
the  legislature  surrendered  the  day  and  the  house. 
There  was  a  procession  of  citizens,  students,  and  state 
functionaries,  led  by  a  band  of  music,  to  the  capitol. 
Addresses  were  delivered  by  Regent  Smith  and  the 
chancellor.  In  the  evening  there  was  a  ball  graced  by 
a  "Kentucky"  belle  and  attended  by  "fifty-two 
couples,"  including  the  chancellor  and  "his  lady."  The 
interest  in  this  function,  combined  with  certain  other  at- 
tractions, filled  the  little  town  to  overflowing.  Among 
the  visitors  were  most  of  the  regents,  so  that,  at  a  series 
of  important  meetings  running  over  three  days,  all  of 
the  board  were  present  except  Bryan  and  Woodman. 

Thereafter,  interest  languished.  Counting  the  chan- 
cellor and  the  state  superintendent  there  were  six  resi- 
dents of  Madison,  on  the  board;  but,  during  the  next 
few  years,  it  became  difficult  to  secure  the  attendance 
of  the  one  out-of-town  member  necessary  to  fill  up  a 


1  The  latter  half  of  his  life  was  spent  in  the  Episcopal  ministry 
in  Florida,  whither  he  had  gone  in  search  of  health  and  where  he 
died,  at  an  advanced  age,  in  1887. 


88  WISCONSIN 

quorum.1  Considering  the  conditions  of  travel  this  is 
not  remarkable.  For  most  of  the  non-resident  members, 
a  visit  to  Madison  entailed  from  one  to  two  days  each 
way  of  hard  staging  over  barbarous  roads.  Arrived  in 
Madison,  the  traveler  might  find  but  cold  comfort  at  the 
overcrowded  hostelries.  General  King,  in  reporting  to 
his  paper  the  events  associated  with  the  chancellor's 
inauguration,  noticed  significantly  his  own  singular  good 
fortune,  in  having  secured  entertainment  at  the  house 
of  a  friend.  The  regents  met,  this  time,  in  the  library 
room  at  the  Capitol ;  but,  on  future  occasions,  they  some- 
times convened  at  the  house  of  a  local  member  for  lack 
of  a  public  meeting  place.  All  of  these  disadvantages 
were  at  their  worst  at  the  time  of  the  annual  meetings 
in  January,  when  the  legislature  was  in  session.  Thus, 
university  affairs  soon  gravitated  into  the  hands  of  the 
chancellor  and  the  local  members  of  the  board,  and 
this  fact,  no  doubt,  accounts  in  some  degree  for  the 
jealous  attitude  of  the  legislature  and  for  a  feeling  of 
hostility  which  was  soon  engendered  in  the  state  toward 
what  many  regarded  as  a  merely  local  institution.  Nor 
is  it  altogether  unlikely  that  local  patriotism,  if  not  per- 
sonal interest,  may  have  contributed  in  a  measure  to  the 
somewhat  precipitant  zeal  with  which  the  university  was 
launched. 

The  first  legislature  not  only  failed  to  elect  a  board  of 
regents;  it  refused  to  provide  funds  for  the  immediate 
organization  of  the  university.  It  had,  however,  ar- 
ranged for  the  valuation  of  the  university  lands  by 

1  During  the  remainder  of  the  first  five  years,  attendance  was 
as  follows:  July  25,  1850,  present  7;  November  20,  1851,  no 
quorum;  December  17,  present  7;  January  17,  1851,  no  quorum; 
January  18,  present  7;  January  20,  same;  December  24,  present  7; 
December  25,  same;  January  21,  1852,  no  quorum;  January  22, 
no  quorum;  August  3,  present  7;  January  19,  1853,  no  quorum; 
September  8,  present  7. 


THE  DAYS  OF  THE  CHANCELLORS        89 

electing  in  joint  session  three  appraisers  for  each  county 
of  the  state.  By  the  time  the  legislature  again  came 
together,  appraisals  had  been  returned  on  a  good  por- 
tion of  the  lands  and,  before  the  end  of  another  year, 
sixty-three  sections  and  a  fraction  had  been  appraised 
at  an  average  of  two  dollars  and  eighty-seven  cents  an 
acre.1  By  an  act  of  1849,  the  secretary  of  state,  the  state 
treasurer,  and  the  attorney  general  were  constituted  a 
board  of  commissioners  to  direct  the  sale  of  school  and 
university  lands  and  to  invest  and  manage  the  funds. 
The  appraised  value  was  established  as  a  minimum  and 
the  commissioners  were  instructed  to  offer  the  lands  for 
sale  at  auction,  commencing  December  15,  1850. 

Many  of  the  appraisals  must  have  been  thoroughly  dis- 
honest. The  average  price  per  acre  set  upon  the 
"selected  university  lands"  was  over  sixty  cents  lower 
than  that  set  upon  "ordinary  school  lands."  Yet  the 
university  lands  had  been  early  and  competently  chosen 
from  the  best  in  the  state,  while  the  school  lands  were 
the  chance  sixteenth  sections  of  the  townships.  These 
facts,  laid  before  the  legislature  by  the  regents,  were 
reiterated  in  the  governor's  message  and  in  a  decisive 
report  from  a  legislative  committee  on  the  university 
and  university  lands,  and,  falling  in  with  the  enthusiasm 
which  attended  the  chancellor's  inauguration,  produced 
so  strong  an  impression  upon  the  legislature  of  1850 
that  a  new  act  was  passed,  setting  the  minimum  price 
at  ten  dollars  an  acre,  and  ordering  immediate  sales 
under  this  limitation.2     In  the  course  of  the  year,   a 

1  On  account  of  a  misprint  (R.R.  1850)  this  has  previously  been 
given  as  $2.7S 

2  At  their  meeting  in  November,  1849,  the  regents  had  resolved 
to  petition  the  legislature  "  to  give  to  the  board  of  regents  the 
power  to  determine  the  time  of  sale  of  the  university  lands,  and 
the  power  to  establish  the  price  at  which  such  lands  shall  be 
sold."    The  request  was  ignored. 


90  WISCONSIN 

thousand  and  fifty-nine  acres  were  disposed  of  at  a  little 
more  than  the  minimum  price.  The  future  bloomed; 
the  chancellor  in  his  next  report  estimated  the  endow- 
ment of  the  university  at  $450,000  and  was  moved  to 
congratulate  the  state  upon  saving  its  university  endow- 
ment from  the  disasters  which  had  befallen  similar 
funds  in  communities  less  favored  by  divine  providence. 
He  was  doomed  to  a  speedy  disillusion.  By  the  next 
meeting  of  the  legislature  a  formidable  resistance  had 
developed  among  pre-emptors  and  speculators.  The 
governor  was  induced  to  urge  the  protection  of  pre- 
emptors  already  in  possession  of  university  lands  by 
enabling  them  to  buy,  "say  forty  acres,"  at  the  ap- 
praised values  of  1849.  But  the  legislature  went  farther 
and  on  the  fourth  of  March  the  assembly, ' '  notwithstand- 
ing the  efforts  of  the  university  interests,"  concurred  in 
a  senate  bill  which  set  the  minimum  price  at  four  dol- 
lars an  acre.  Governor  Dewey  vetoed  the  bill  and  it  was 
succeeded  by  another,  which  became  a  law,  setting  the 
price  at  seven  dollars,  and  instructing  the  commis- 
sioners to  remit  any  excess  over  this  amount  paid  by 
former  purchasers. 

This  reduction  of  price  was  not  altogether  unwelcome 
to  the  university  officers  since  it  promised  a  more  rapid 
sale  of  the  lands.  But  the  end  was  not  yet.  The  next 
governor,  L.  J.  Farwell  (1852  and  1853),  though  ap- 
parently conscientious,  espoused  a  policy  which  proved 
favorable  to  private  interests.  His  first  message  opposed 
the  withholding  of  the  university  lands  from  sale  as 
inimical  to  the  material  progress  of  the  state.  The 
legislature  took  the  cue  and  voted  a  re-appraisal  of  the 
lands,  establishing  three  dollars  an  acre  as  the  minimum 
price  at  which  appraisals  might  be  made.    As  a  further 


THE  DAYS  OP  THE  CHANCELLORS        91 

inducement  to  buyers  the  requirement  of  purchase  money 
was  abolished.  The  new  appraisers  virtually  adopted 
the  three  dollars  imposed  by  law  as  a  maximum  with  the 
result  that  a  good  share  of  the  lands  were  sold  at  about 
this  price.  But,  not  only  was  the  price  reduced, — the 
fund  was  mulcted  for  a  new  appraisal  charge  and  the 
security  of  sales  was  greatly  impaired.  The  act  of  1849 
for  the  sale  of  school  and  university  lands  had  restricted 
bids  from  any  one  person  to  one  hundred  and  sixty 
acres  for  the  purpose  of  confining  purchases  to  actual 
settlers;  but  this  feature  was  likewise  rescinded  and  it 
was  not  until  1855,  after  great  scandal  and  damage,  that 
a  new  limitation  (to  three  hundred  and  twenty  acres) 
was  imposed.1 

The  high  minimum  prices  of  1850  and  1851  protected 
the  university  lands  temporarily  from  the  greed  of 
speculators,  but  the  reduction  of  the  price  and  the  aboli- 
tion of  forfeit  money  enabled  buyers  to  enter  large 
quantities  of  lands  which  they  could  inspect  at  their 
leisure,  turning  back  upon  the  commissioners  those  lands 

1  The  most  notorious  abuse  was  in  connection  with  the  school 
lands.  It  was  shown  at  the  time,  and  admitted  by  the  commis- 
sioners, that  in  1855,  the  school  lands  had  been  withdrawn  from 
registration  for  three  months,  to  permit  the  agents  of  one  Luding- 
ton  of  Boston  to  make  selections  of  the  choice  lands.  There  were 
thus  withdraw  165,000  acres  of  which  Ludington  secured  70,000. 
A  joint  investigating  committee  of  the  legislature,  in  1856,  re- 
ported "  gross  irregularity  and  perhaps  fraud  in  the  management 
of  school  lands  on  the  part  of  the  commissioners,  Geo.  B.  Smith 
and  Alexander  T.  Gray."  It  was  the  pot  calling  the  kettle  black, 
however.  With  a  few  shining  exceptions  this  entire  legislature 
had  been  bought  up  by  the  La  Crosse  and  Milwaukee  Railroad, 
Byron  Kilbourn,  president.  In  disposing  of  the  land  grant  for 
the  encouragement  of  railroads,  each  legislator  had  received  for 
his  vote  "  a  liberal  douceur  or  gratuity,"  as  it  waa  delicately 
denominated  by  Byron  Kilbourn,  the  president  of  the  company 
and  chief  manager  of  these  "  reciprocal  acts  of  favor."  The  chief 
point  at  issue  in  the  investigation  of  this  affair  was,  whether  the 
"  pecuniary  compliments  "  were  conferred  or  rather  promised,  be- 
fore or  after  the  voting  of  the  grant. 


92  WISCONSIN 

which  proved  undesirable  as  investments.  In  a  very- 
short  time,  the  holdings  of  the  university  consisted 
mostly  of  rejected  lands  of  relatively  little  value,  and 
in  the  end,  the  entire  grant  netted  but  a  third  of  the 
chancellor's  first  estimate.  As  if  this  were  not  enough, 
the  fund  was  still  further  mulcted  for  clerk  hire  and 
suffered  diminution  through  bad  investment.  It  was 
originally  intended  that  the  expenses  of  the  school  and 
swamp  land  bureau  should  be  sustained  from  the  fees 
charged  to  the  purchasers  of  lands.  But  under  Gov- 
ernor Barstow's  administration  (1854  and  1855),  the 
state  officers  adopted  the  practice  of  drawing  money 
from  the  treasury  for  the  payment  of  clerks  and  pocket- 
ing the  fees.  An  investigation  of  the  state  departments 
in  1856  showed  that  $35,385.75  in  office  fees  had  been 
"converted  to  the  private  use  of  the  commissioners," 
"an  enormous  tax  for  the  benefit  of  two  or  three  peo- 
ple .  .  .  already  paid  for  their  time  out  of  the  treas- 
ury," while  there  had  been  charged  off  against  the  lands 
$22,758.58  in  clerk  hire,  besides  other  expenses  for  ap- 
praising, advertising,  blanks,  etc."  The  loss  of  the 
university  in  charges  of  this  character  was  more  than 
$10,000.  The  sum  that  was  lost  through  bad  loans  in 
small  amounts  of  $500  to  private  individuals  through- 
out the  state  was  said  by  an  investigating  committee  of 
regents  (1860)  to  amount  to  only  $600,  nor  was  the 
charge  fully  proved  that  these  losses  occurred  chiefly 
among  private  friends  and  political  adherents  of  the 
state  officers.  Even  according  to  the  standard  of  those 
easy-going  days,  however,  "gross  offenses  had  been  com- 
mitted." The  university  fund  had  been  intrusted  to 
the  management  of  the  state  departments  so  that  it 
might  be  spared  any  administrative  expense;  instead  it 
had  been  exposed  to  the  inroads  of  the  "Forty  Thieves" 


THE  DAYS  OF  THE   CHANCELLORS        93 

of  contemporary  parlance;  many  precious  dollars,  that 
might  have  helped  to  launch  the  university  on  its  way, 
floated  instead  the  champagne  suppers  of  "Barstow  and 
the  balance. ' ' 

Meanwhile,  without  waiting  for  funds,  the  regents 
had  proceeded  to  purchase  a  site  and  set  the  university 
in  operation.  Loans  "effected  on  the  private  responsi- 
bility of  the  board  of  regents  to  the  amount  of  $260" 
were  applied  to  the  first  payment  on  the  Vanderpool 
purchase  and  to  fitting  up  a  room  for  the  preparatory 
department.  Up  to  January  15,  1850,  the  only  funds 
received  had  been  the  "fees  in  the  primary  department 
which  have  mostly  been  collected  by  Professor  J.  W.  Ster- 
ling and  should  undoubtedly  be  applied  in  payment  of 
his  salary. " x  At  this  time  another  private  loan  of 
$500  was  effected  and,  shortly  after,  the  loan  of  $25,000 
granted  by  the  legislature  of  1850  became  available  and 
was  drawn  upon  for  current  expenses  as  well  as  for  the 
building  operations  of  this  and  the  following  year.  Be- 
sides this  loan,  the  chief  resource  during  the  first  few 
years  was  the  profit  on  lots  in  the  university  subdivision. 
By  November  20,  1850,  the  site  had  been  paid  for  at  a 
total  cash  outlay  of  $3,833.33,  while  $236  had  been  col- 
lected upon  lots  sold.  During  the  next  twelve-month 
over  five  thousand  dollars  in  cash  was  received  from  this 
source  and,  within  a  couple  of  years  more,  the  lots  had 
been  practically  closed  out  at  a  net  gain  to  the  univer- 
sity of  about  ten  thousand  dollars.  A  portion  of  the 
lots  had  been  traded  off  for  village  lots  that  were  required 
to  fill  out  the  site.  Four  lots  ' ' on  the  western  extremity ' ' 
were  "contracted,  nominally  for  the  sum  of  fifty  dollars, 
but  really  in  the  consideration  of  the  erection  of  a  brick 
boarding  house  sufficiently  large  to  accommodate  fifty 

1  MSS.    Minutes  of  the  Board  of  Regents. 


94  WISCONSIN 

students  with  board,  to  be  erected  on  said  lots."  In 
1852,  four  hundred  and  sixteen  maple  and  elm  trees, 
"planted  out  upon  the  university  grounds"  were  ac- 
cepted as  payment  for  four  lots.  A  number  of  university 
officers  bought  lots,  one  of  the  largest  investors  being  the 
chancellor  himself,  who  apparently  accepted  a  portion 
of  his  salary  in  this  form.  Had  the  regents  been  able  to 
hold  this  plat  off  the  market  for  a  few  years  instead  of 
selling  it  out  to  meet  current  expenses,  a  considerable 
fund  would  have  accrued  to  the  university.  As  it  was, 
the  land  had  changed  hands  within  two  or  three  years 
and  the  money  had  been  spent. 

Thus  far,  the  most  formidable  item  of  current  expense 
had  been  the  chancellor's  salary  of  $2,000  a  year,  "a 
medium  of  the  salaries  paid  to  the  presidents  in  our 
best  American  colleges."  The  salary  outlay,  up  to  the 
time  of  the  first  report,  had  amounted  to  $2,841.66,  plans 
and  ground  improvements,  $379.25,  printing  and  adver- 
tising, $533.50,  cabinet  and  books,  $409.22.  There  had 
already  appeared  on  the  list  an  ominous  interest  charge 
of  $1,577.62.  As  further  offsets  to  these  expenditures 
there  were  the  tuition  fees  of  students,  which  had 
amounted,  during  the  first  year,  to  $364,  and  the  first 
payment  on  the  university  land  fund,  three  hundred 
dollars. 

The  next  year  (1851)  there  seems  to  have  been  no 
payment  on  account  of  the  land  fund  income.  There 
remained  of  the  state  loan  about  $2,500.  This,  with 
student  fees  and  the  five  thousand  dollars  derived  from 
the  sale  of  lots,  supplied  instant  needs  and  the  regents 
faced  the  fiscal  year  of  1852  with  a  balance  in  the  treas- 
ury of  ninety-three  cents.  They  received  during  the 
next  twelve-month  $650  from  the  income  fund,  and,  upon 
sale  of  lots,  close  to  three  thousand  dollars.    The  dormi- 


THE  DAYS  OP  THE  CHANCELLORS        95 

tory  being  now  occupied,  student  tuition  and  rent 
amounted  to  $948.96,  but  the  total  sum  from  all  these 
sources  of  income  was  only  $4,503.34  while  the  expendi- 
tures for  the  year  came  to  $8,480.27.  This  puzzling 
financial  problem  was  solved  in  the  most  approved  man- 
ner. The  treasurer's  account  was  adorned  with  a  hand- 
some credit  of  $4,980  and  the  regents  had  engaged  to  pay 
annually,  to  a  gentleman  in  New  York,  eight  per  cent, 
of  five  thousand  dollars.  The  date  for  the  repayment  of 
the  last-named  amount  was  sufficiently  distant  to  render 
it  of  purely  academic  interest. 

With  matters  at  this  pass,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how 
the  university  could  have  survived  another  year  had  not 
the  sweeping  reduction  at  this  moment  of  the  price  of 
university  lands  greatly  accelerated  their  sale.  It  is 
possible  that  the  embarrassments  of  the  moment  en- 
feebled, in  some  measure,  the  resistance  of  the  university 
authorities  to  the  action  of  the  legislature  in  1852.  Cer- 
tain it  is  that  the  chancellor's  next  report  refers  with 
cheerful  satisfaction  to  the  augmented  resources  of  the 
university  which  have  resulted  from  the  recent  act.  Up 
to  October,  1852,  the  total  proceeds  of  sales  amounted 
to  only  $26,000,  the  income  from  which  would  have  been 
insufficient  to  meet  the  annual  interest  which  the  regents 
were  engaged  to  pay.  By  the  end  of  another  year,  with 
the  new  price  in  effect,  the  sales  aggregated  $106,000,  of 
which  all  but  $10,000  was  already  producing  an  income. 
Thus,  in  the  fifth  year  of  its  operation,  the  university 
received  from  its  land  fund  something  over  three  thou- 
sand dollars.  Tuition,  sale  of  lots,  and  the  remains  of  its 
New  York  loan  brought  its  total  income  for  the  year  to 
$6,645.58  and  it  entered  upon  its  second  lustrum  with  a 
credit  balance  of  $281.15.  The  next  year  the  university 
received  $6,800  from  this  source  and  in  1855,  $12,404.15, 


96  WISCONSIN 

which  included,  however,  a  balance  from  the  preceding 
year  and  exceeded  the  annual  income  of  the  fund. 

The  first  grant  of  lands  had  now  been  largely  disposed 
of  and  had  produced,  so  far,  a  fund  of  about  $161,000. 
In  the  meantime,  the  grant  had  been  duplicated.  The 
state,  on  entering  the  Union,  had  received  from  the  na- 
tional government  a  gift  of  "twelve  salt  springs,  with 
six  sections  of  land  adjoining  to  each."  As  there  were 
no  lands  of  this  character  in  Wisconsin,  the  legislature 
of  1851  had  petitioned  congress  for  the  privilege  of 
selecting  from  any  government  lands  remaining  within 
the  state  "the  same  quantity  for  the  use  of  the  State 
University."  The  petition  was  allowed  in  an  act  ap- 
proved December  15,  1854.  In  anticipation  of  favor- 
able action,  most  of  the  seventy-two  sections  had  been 
located  and  the  entire  grant  was  soon  ready  for  market. 
The  board  of  regents  at  once  appointed  a  committee  to 
consider  "the  policy  of  the  institution  relative  to  the 
disposal  of  the  new  land  endowment" ;  but  nothing  effec- 
tive was  accomplished.  The  chancellor  in  a  disheart- 
ened tone  referred  to  his  "observation  of  the  chances 
to  which  university  lands  are  exposed"  and  doubted 
whether  the  university  might  not  be  a  loser  by  aiming  at 
a  larger  amount  than  the  minimum  already  set  by  law. 
He  was  even  tempted  by  the  thought  of  the  dispatch 
and  security  which  would  attend  a  sale  at  two  dollars 
and  a  half.  The  chief  danger  to  be  avoided  was  that  of 
dishonest  pre-emption  before  the  lands  were  offered 
for  sale,  an  abuse  at  which  the  state  officers, — one  of 
whom  was  at  this  moment  a  member  of  the  board  of  re- 
gents— were  suspected  of  conniving.  The  only  safe- 
guard thrown  round  the  new  grant,  however,  was  the 
law  of  1855,  already  referred  to,  which  limited  bids 
from  one  person  to  three  hundred  and  twenty  acres. 


THE  DAYS  OP  THE  CHANCELLORS        97 

The  lands  were  soon  taken  at  the  low  minimum  price 
set  by  the  1852  act  and  the  income  fund  was  increased 
by  the  pitiful  sum  of  $138,240. 

In  1854,  as  we  have  seen,  the  legislature  permitted 
the  regents  to  increase  their  indebtedness  to  the  school 
fund  through  a  further  loan  of  $15,000,  in  order  that 
the  second  dormitory  might  be  brought  to  completion. 
In  asking  for  this  loan  the  chancellor  and  regents  ex- 
pressed their  determination,  as  soon  as  this  building 
should  have  been  finished,  to  establish  a  sinking  fund 
and  to  project  no  further  buildings  until  these  should 
have  been  paid  for.  The  defensive  tone  adopted  here, 
as  well  as  in  the  optimistic  review  of  the  university's 
assets  included  in  this  report,  indicates  that  the  regents 
were  already  apprehensive  of  criticism  for  their  man- 
agement of  the  university  finances.  The  legislature  of 
1854,  from  a  mixture  of  motives  no  doubt,  tightened  their 
grip  on  the  university  finances,  ordering  that  hereafter 
no  money  should  be  "drawn  from  the  treasury  by  the 
board  of  regents,  except  in  pursuance  of  an  express 
appropriation  by  law." 

With  the  accumulation  of  the  income  fund,  however, 
the  virtuous  resolution  of  1854  relaxed,  and  the  regents 
applied  to  the  legislature  of  1857  for  a  loan  of  $40,000 
for  the  construction  of  the  third  building.  But  the 
whole  country  was  soon  in  the  grip  of  hard  times  and  the 
state  treasury  was  bare.  The  regents  resorted  again  to 
borrowing  from  private  sources,  paying  the  heavy  toll 
of  ten  per  cent,  interest  for  temporary  loans  with  which 
to  carry  on  their  project.  The  amount  of  the  state  loan 
was  eventually  made  up  compositely  from  the  school, 
general,  and  university  funds,  and  the  cost  of  the  build- 
ing ran  to  about  $60,000.  With  the  main  edifice  com- 
pleted, the  university  found  itself,  at  the  end  of  the 
first  decade,  in  a  financial  situation  which  few  could 


98  WISCONSIN 

regard  with  complacency.  The  productive  fund  of  the 
university  was  estimated  in  September,  1858,  at  $316,- 
365.83,  but  two  years  later  this  had  shrunk,  through 
forfeitures,  to  $286,725.92.  There  had  been  expended  on 
buildings  and  grounds  $101,000,  of  which  some  $6,000 
had  been  expended  out  of  income,  while  the  outstanding 
loans  amounted  to  $95,146.81,  the  New  York  loan  of 
$5,000  remaining  still  unpaid.  Of  a  gross  annual  income 
amounting  to  about  $21,000,  over  one-third,  or  $7,239.70 
must  be  paid  out  every  year  as  interest,  while  nearly  a 
thousand  dollars  was  annually  charged  off  for  clerk 
hire,  leaving  a  net  income  of  only  ten  or  twelve  thousand 
dollars.  The  university  found  itself,  it  is  true,  in  pos- 
session of  a  campus  and  buildings  which  made  an  excel- 
lent showing  in  a  statement  of  assets,  but  with  an  income 
absurdly  inadequate  to  the  support  of  an  institution  of 
learning, — the  shell  of  such  an  institution  but  no  ade- 
quate means  of  sustaining  life  within  it. 

At  first  glance,  this  situation  appears  to  confirm  the 
claim  of  hostile  critics  that  the  officers  of  the  university 
had  grossly  mismanaged  its  business  affairs.  But  before 
agreeing  with  this  censure  one  should  be  mindful  of  the 
serious  difficulties  with  which  they  had  to  contend.  In 
the  first  place  it  should  be  remembered  that  at  no  time 
had  the  board  of  regents  more  than  an  indirect  influence 
over  the  sale  of  the  university  lands  or  the  management 
of  the  fund;  nor  had  they  an  opportunity  to  outline  a 
policy  for  the  use  of  the  income  which  should  be  free 
from  interference  on  the  part  of  the  legislature  and  the 
state  officers.  The  legislature  of  1849  had  intrusted  the 
sale  of  the  lands  and  the  management  of  the  fund  to  a 
committee  of  the  state  officers  as  an  addition  to  their 
regular  duties;  that  of  1854  added  to  the  helplessness 
of  the  board  by  requiring  the  income  to  be  voted  as  an 


THE  DAYS  OF  THE  CHANCELLORS        99 

annual  appropriation.  The  board  of  regents,  with  the 
chairman  of  the  faculty  for  its  executive,  had,  therefore, 
to  appear  annually  before  the  legislature  to  sue  for  the 
use  of  the  income  on  its  own  fund,  the  entire  manage- 
ment of  which  was  in  the  hands  of  still  another  group 
of  officers  with  whom  it  was  a  secondary  business,  who 
had  no  necessary  interest  in  the  welfare  of  the  university, 
and  over  whose  conduct,  it  proved,  the  legislature  itself 
exercised  but  faint  control.  With  but  a  tenuous  hold 
upon  the  resources  of  the  institution,  the  regents  had 
constantly  to  reckon  with  the  deadly  perils  which  envi- 
roned public  funds  and  public  grants  of  land.  The  early 
regents  were  men  of  proved  sagacity,  many  of  them 
intimately  acquainted  with  public  life;  if  they  appear 
to  have  launched  the  university  with  short-sighted  pre- 
cipitancy, it  is  well  to  remember  that  they  knew  their 
contemporaries  and  the  hazards  of  contemporary 
politics  better  than  we.  We  know  enough  to  realize  that 
delays  might  have  proved  disastrous  to  the  whole  enter- 
prise. They  could  not,  of  course,  forecast  either  the 
panic  of  1857  or  the  Civil  War.  Doubtless  the  feeling  of 
posterity  ought  to  be,  not  one  of  carping  discontent  that 
more  was  not  accomplished,  but  one  of  admiration  and 
gratitude  that,  in  the  face  of  dismaying  obstacles,  a 
start  was  made.1 

1  Curiously,  discussions  of  the  land  grants  seem  to  have  ignored 
almost  entirely  the  fluctuations  which  occurred  in  land  values  in 
the  course  of  the  various  transactions  under  consideration.  The 
effect  of  the  panic  of  1837  in  checking  the  Michigan  sales,  and 
the  effect  of  the  competition  of  government  lands  in  particular 
states  upon  the  sale  of  educational  grants  within  the  same  state 
have  been  frequently  noted;  but  the  broad  change  in  the  value  of 
unimproved  lands  has  not  been  brought  to  bear  We  have  seen 
{ante,  p.  4)  how  immigration  abandoned  Michigan  for  Wisconsin 
in  the  decade  1840-50.  After  about  1840,  the  opening  of  unlimited 
areas  of  public  land  and  the  new  facilities  for  settlement  which 
made  them  available  with  ever-increasing  rapidity,  produced  a 
gradual  depression  in  land  values  which  invalidates  all  unmodi- 


100  WISCONSIN 

The  original  charter  of  the  university  provided  for 
the  erection  of  four  departments:  "  (1)  The  Department 
of  Science,  Literature,  and  the  Liberal  Arts;  (2)  The 
Department  of  Law;  (3)  The  Department  of  Medicine; 
(4)  The  Department  of  the  Theory  and  Practice  of  Ele- 
mentary Instruction."  "To  this,  I  am  satisfied,"  wrote 
the  chancellor,  in  an  early  communication  to  the  board 
of  regents,  "  we  must  add  a  fifth,  namely,  a  school  of 
the  application  of  Science  to  Agriculture  and  the  useful 

fied  comparisons  6uch  as,  for  example,  that  so  often  made  between 
Michigan  and  Wisconsin  It  was  a  long  time  before  the  increase 
in  colonization  overcame  the  tendency  of  these  causes  to  depress 
the  value  of  unimproved  lands  It  would  appear,  therefore,  that 
Michigan  was  peculiarly  fortunate  in  the  time  when  her  lands 
were  first  placed  upon  the  market.  Michigan  did  not  realize  more 
from  her  university  lands  than  other  states  merely  because  she 
held  them  for  a  rise  in  value;  in  fact,  her  earliest  sales  were  her 
highest.  She  realized  more  because  she  sold  on  a  higher  market 
and,  a  part  of  the  time,  at  fictitious  prices  through  receiving  pay- 
ment in  depreciated  scrip.  In  1837  Michigan  sold  several  thou- 
sand acres  of  university  lands  at  $22.85  an  acre.  A  dozen  years 
later,  when  Wisconsin  was  at  about  the  same  stage  of  develop- 
ment, no  friend  of  the  university  dreamed  of  realizing  more  than 
$10.00  an  acre  for  equally  good  lands.  Without  questioning,  on 
the  whole,  Michigan's  superior  management  of  her  land  grants, 
it  is  allowable  to  say  that  comparisons  are  shallow  which  do  not 
take  these  qualifications  into  account. 

Before  closing  a  discussion,  at  once  too  long  for  the  place  and 
too  brief  for  the  subject,  it  may  be  permissible  to  touch  one 
related  point  which  bears  upon  the  fallacy,  partial  at  least,  of  the 
charges  of  folly  so  often  urged  against  the  early  sales  of  the  trust 
lands  Dividing  the  census  estimates  of  the  total  cash  value  of 
farm  lands,  improved  and  unimproved,  in  Michigan  and  Wisconsin 
respectively,  for  the  years  1850,  1860,  and  1870,  by  the  total 
number  of  acres  reported,  we  arrive  at  the  following  estimates  of 
the  average  cash  value  of  farm  lands  per  acre  at  the  ten-year 
intervals: 

1850  Michigan  $12.00;  Wisconsin  $  9  00 

1860   Michigan  $23  00;   Wisconsin  $16  00 

1870   Michigan  $39  50;   Wisconsin  $25  50 

It  may  be  seen  that,  on  the  average,  in  either  Michigan  or 
Wisconsin,  the  price  of  an  acre  of  land  funded  for  ten  years  at 
seven  per  cent.,  the  lowest  ruling  rate  of  interest  at  that  time, 
would  have  yielded  almost  exactly  the  cash  value  of  the  land  at 
the  end  of  that  period.  It  was  held  in  the  Wisconsin  legislature 
in   1849,  when  the  question  of  selling  or  holding  the  university 


THE  DAYS  OP  THE  CHANCELLORS      101 

arts."  His  idea  of  the  relation  of  parts  in  such  an 
institution  is  clearly  set  forth  in  his  report  of  1853. 
"The  entire  conception  of  an  American  university  would 
be  realized,"  he  thinks,  in  "  (A)  a  central  institution  of 
general  and  liberal  education,  surrounded  by  (B)  pro- 
fessional schools  of  1,  Theology,  2,  Medicine  and  3,  Law," 
to  which  he  "would  add  4,  The  Normal  School,  and  5, 
The  School  of  Science  as  applied  to  Agriculture  and  the 
Arts."  Theology  he  eliminates,  since,  "for  reasons  satis- 
factory to  the  community"  the  state  will  not  undertake 
instruction  in  this  branch.  He  would  persuade  the 
various  denominational  colleges  to  specialize  in  this  sub- 
ject, relinquishing  to  the  university  more  and  more  the 
education  of  their  candidates  in  other  fields  of  knowledge. 
Of  the  comprehensive  plan  unfolded  in  the  charter 
only  a  small  part  was  destined  to  be  realized  for  a  long 
time  to  come ;  except  for  a  few  unfruitful  tentatives  the 
resources  of  the  university  after  the  erection  of  buildings 
were  barely  sufficient  for  the  support  of  what  Chancellor 
Lathrop  here  calls  "the  central  institution  of  general 
and  liberal  education."  It  was  the  policy  of  the  chan- 
cellor and  regents  so  to  proceed  that  the  provision  of 
the  material  plant,  the  building  up  of  a  teaching  staff, 
and  the  increase  and  scholastic  progress  of  the  student 
clientele  should  all  keep  pace  with  each  other  and  with 

lands  was  under  consideration,  that  the  increment  in  value  of 
the  lands  would  not  exceed  the  use  of  the  money  at  seven  per  cent. 
The  event  seems  to  have  validated  this  argument.  Abstractly, 
then,  assuming  that  a  fund  was  to  be  created  and  assuming  that 
sales  were  honestly  made,  it  was  indifferent  whether  the  lands 
should  be  held  for  a  period  of  years  and  then  sold,  or  sold  at  once 
and  the  proceeds  funded  for  an  equal  length  of  time  Was  it  the 
duty  of  the  fathers  of  the  state,  by  either  method,  to  delay  the 
founding  of  a  university  for  ten,  or  twenty,  or  even  thirty  years, 
in  order  to  confer  upon  posterity  the  benefit  of  such  a  fund? 
They  chose  to  confer  upon  the  next  generation,  educated  men 
rather  than  an  incremented  educational  fund.  The  men  were  few 
and  their  education  was  expensive.  Who  will,  may  judge  whether 
they  cost  too  much. 


102  WISCONSIN 

the  avails  of  the  university  fund.  They  regarded  it  as 
axiomatic  that  the  first  claim  upon  the  fund  belonged  to 
the  central  college,  which  they  modeled  upon  "the  best 
classical  colleges  in  the  country."  As  we  have  seen, 
their  first  step  in  this  direction  had  been  to  set  going 
the  preparatory  department  under  the  direction  of  Pro- 
fessor Sterling,  who,  as  soon  as  the  college  should  be  in 
operation,  was  to  hold  the  chair  of  Mathematics  and 
Natural  Philosophy.  During  the  first  three  terms,  ex- 
cept for  some  assistance  from  the  chancellor,  Professor 
Sterling  gave  all  the  instruction  to  the  preparatory 
classes.  When,  in  1850,  a  small  class  had  been  prepared 
to  begin  the  work  of  freshman  year,  a  tutor  was  added 
to  the  faculty.  The  first  tutor,  Obadiah  M.  Conover,  was 
advanced  two  years  later  to  the  professorship  of  An- 
cient Languages  and  Literatures  and  the  tutorship  was 
filled  by  the  appointment  of  Stephen  H.  Carpenter.  The 
chancellor  "rendered  daily  instruction  in  the  classical 
department."  It  was  not  until  the  spring  of  1854  that 
a  professor  of  Chemistry  and  Natural  History  was 
elected  in  order  that  scientific  instruction  might  be 
supplied  to  the  first  graduating  class.  Professor  S.  P. 
Lathrop  of  Beloit  was  assigned  to  this  post  and  gave  the 
first  instruction  in  Chemistry  with  the  help  of  apparatus 
borrowed  from  Beloit  College.  The  following  autumn 
John  P.  Fuchs,  M.  D.,  was  engaged  to  give  instruction 
in  Modern  Languages,  entering  upon  the  professorship 
a  year  later.  Meantime  the  chair  of  Mental  Philosophy, 
Logic,  English  Literature,  and  Ehetoric  had  been  filled 
by  the  unanimous  election  of  Professor  Daniel  Read,  and, 
after  some  delay,  occasioned  by  a  movement  in  the  board 
of  regents  to  suspend  operations  for  a  time,  Ezra  S. 
Carr,  M.  D.,  had  been  elected  to  succeed  Professor 
Lathrop,  who  died  in  the  first  year  of  his  incumbency. 


THE  DAYS  OF  THE  CHANCELLORS      103 

The  remaining  chair  of  Ethics,  Civil  Polity,  and  Political 
Economy  was  an  appanage  of  the  chancellorship ;  so 
that,  at  the  opening  of  the  year  1855-56,  the  college 
faculty  was  complete. 

Professor  Sterling's  salary  during  the  first  few  years 
had  been  only  five  hundred  dollars;  when  Professor 
Conover  was  elected,  the  salaries  of  both  were  fixed  at 
six  hundred  dollars  and,  early  in  1854,  the  regents  voted 
that  these  should  increase  one  hundred  dollars  per 
annum,  until  they  should  reach  one  thousand  dollars. 
Professor  Read,  however,  was  elected  at  a  salary  of  one 
thousand  dollars  and  the  others  were  promptly  raised 
to  the  same  scale.  The  chancellor's  salary  was  two  thou- 
sand, and  the  salary  of  the  tutor  five  hundred  dollars, 
a  year.  Small  as  was  this  salary  budget,  a  glance  will 
show  that  little  margin  was  left  for  further  expansion 
of  the  institution  within  the  resources  provided  by  its 
land  fund. 

We  come  now  to  one  of  the  most  difficult  as  well  as 
one  of  the  most  interesting  phases  of  university  history. 
By  the  time  the  organization  of  the  central  college  had 
been  completed  there  had  arisen  in  the  state  lively  dis- 
satisfaction with  the  manner  in  which  the  university 
had  been  developed.  Although  much  of  the  hostile  criti- 
cism was  interested  and  disingenuous,  and  much  of  it 
was  ignorant  or  misinformed,  the  officers  of  the  institu- 
tion could  not  but  be  aware  that  there  was  a  demand 
among  the  people  of  the  state  for  something  different 
from  the  classical  college  that  had  been  created.  What  was 
demanded  was  "a  real  university"  and  more  "practical" 
instruction.  That  the  state  itself  had  by  mismanagement 
so  crippled  the  university  fund  as  to  make  such  a  de- 
velopment impossible  is  a  fair  pleading  in  historical 
equity,  but  it  did  not  relieve  the  temporal  difficulties  of 


104  WISCONSIN 

the  chancellor  and  regents.  Having  virtually  no  funds 
with  which  to  proceed,  they  organized  the  remaining 
departments  on  paper  and,  where  this  was  possible, 
began  operations  in  a  small  and  tentative  way,  hoping 
by  such  means  to  appease  popular  sentiment  and 
place  the  departments  in  line  for  assistance  from 
other  sources  than  the  regular  income  of  the  uni- 
versity. 

An  ordinance  for  the  establisment  of  a  Department  of 
Medicine  with  seven  chairs  of  instruction  was  passed 
by  the  board  of  regents  in  February,  1855.  Its  "emolu- 
ments" were  to  be  derived  from  the  fees  of  tuition  until 
the  university  should  be  free  from  debt  and  "in  the 
enjoyment  of  a  clear  annual  income  of  at  least  $12,000." 
The  faculty  was  appointed  and  given  a  page  in  the 
catalogue  of  1856.  In  1857,  the  sum  of  six  hundred  dol- 
lars was  appropriated  to  the  department  "for  specific, 
objects"  and  the  sum  of  five  hundred  dollars  was  ex- 
pended by  the  dean  of  the  faculty  of  Medicine  in  a 
manner  that  was  never  satisfactorily  explained  to  the 
board.  The  Department  of  Law  was  ordained  in  1857, 
with  two  professorships,  but  did  not  get  beyond  the 
naming  of  the  faculty  and  an  appearance  in  the  cat- 
alogue. The  departments  of  Normal  Instruction  and  of 
Agricultural  Instruction  were  organized  early  in  1856 
by  the  appointment  to  these  separate  chairs  of  Professors 
Read  and  Carr  with  an  additional  salary  in  each  case  of 
five  hundred  dollars.  The  same  year  a  course  leading  to 
the  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Philosophy  was  established  for 
the  benefit  of  students  who  wished  to  dispense  with  the 
ancient  languages  and  to  give  greater  attention  to 
scientific  and  practical  subjects.  The  degree  was  first 
conferred  in  1858.  Two  new  departments  of  theoretic 
and  practical  Engineering,  and  of  Physics  and  Astron- 


THE  DAYS  OF  THE  CHANCELLORS      105 

omy  were  created  in  1857,  but  there  were  no  funds  to 
warrant  appointments. 

Of  these  early  tentatives  the  one  of  most  immediate 
importance  was  that  in  the  direction  of  normal  instruc- 
tion. The  incorporation  in  the  charter  of  a  department 
of  the  Theory  and  Practice  of  Elementary  Instruction 
had  been  an  addition  to  the  scheme  of  university  organ- 
ization which  had  been,  otherwise,  copied  from  that  of 
Michigan,  and  novelty  was  claimed  for  it  by  the  regents. 
It  was  quite  certain  that  the  popular  interest  in  this 
branch  of  education  on  account  of  its  practical  relation 
to  the  common  schools  would  lead,  in  time,  to  some  form 
of  state  support,  and  the  chancellor  and  regents  were 
anxious  to  turn  this  to  the  advantage  of  the  university. 
In  their  first  request  for  a  building  to  house  the  pre- 
paratory department,  the  regents  had  announced  their 
intention  of  converting  it,  eventually,  into  a  model 
school  for  the  Normal  Department, — a  project  which  was 
to  remain  unrealized  for  nearly  three  quarters  of  a  cen- 
tury. Again,  when  the  loan  for  the  completion  of 
South  Hall  was  asked  of  the  legislature,  this  building 
was  said  to  be  intended,  ultimately,  for  the  use  of  the 
same  department.  The  chancellor's  first  report  (1850) 
contained  some  acute  remarks  in  regard  to  the  advantages 
of  connecting  this  branch  of  popular  education  with  the 
university.  "The  Normal  School  system  of  the  eastern 
states,"  he  observed,  was  "open  to  the  objection  of  fos- 
tering and  perpetuating  those  distinctive  characteristics 
of  the  teacher  which  have  hitherto  impaired  his  influ- 
ence." The  university  on  the  other  hand  is  primarily 
a  seat  of  learning,  yet  "makes  the  teacher  of  the  district 
school  the  dispenser  of  its  bounty.  Its  pulsations  send 
the  tide  of  intellectual  life  to  the  remotest  extremities 
of  the  social  body."     The  last  sentence  is  not  a  bad 


106  WISCONSIN 

example  of  the  eloquence  of  generalization  with  which 
the  chancellor  frequently  mitigated  the  absence  of 
actualities,  and  which  did  not  escape  the  derision  of 
hostile  critics.  Beyond  the  annual  reiteration  of  hopes 
and  promises,  nothing  was  accomplished  until  1856. 
Then  Professor  Read,  who  seems  to  have  been  appalled 
at  nothing,  had  the  title  Professor  of  Normal  Instruction 
added  to  the  array  of  subjects  with  which  his  name  was 
connected,  and  a  course  of  lectures  on  the  art  of  teaching 
was  announced  for  the  summer  term.  Candidates  for 
the  course  were  advised  to  be  on  hand  at  the  beginning 
of  the  term  in  order  that  the  lectures  might  be  preceded 
by  an  elementary  review.  Eighteen  teachers  attended 
and  the  course  was  repeated  the  following  summer  to  a 
class  of  twenty-eight;  the  attendance  in  1858  seems  to 
be  unrecorded. 

About  the  same  time,  the  first  steps  toward  the  en- 
couragement of  normal  instruction  were  being  taken  by 
the  state  government.  It  had  been  ordered  by  the  state 
constitution  that  the  portion  of  the  school  fund  remain- 
ing after  the  common  schools  had  been  provided  for, 
should  be  "appropriated  to  the  support  and  maintenance 
of  academies  and  normal  schools  and  suitable  libraries 
and  apparatus  therefor."  But  the  school  lands  had 
suffered  the  same  fate  as  the  university  endowment,  so 
that  no  such  surplus  was  available.  To  make  up 
this  deficiency,  the  legislature,  in  1857,  appropriated 
"twenty-five  per  cent,  of  the  gross  proceeds  arising  from 
the  sale  of  swamp  and  overflowed  lands"  and  passed 
"An  Act  for  the  encouragement  of  Academies  and  Nor- 
mal Schools"  wherein  it  was  provided  that  any  college 
or  academy  of  the  state,  "of  clear  capital  of  $50,000" 
which  engaged  in  normal  instruction,  might  receive  aid 
from  the  state  up  to  $5,000  a  year.    A  bonus  of  twenty 


THE  DAYS  OP  THE  CHANCELLORS      107 

dollars  was  offered  "for  every  female  graduate."  The 
board  of  regents  of  normal  schools  met  for  organiza- 
tion, at  Madison,  in  July,  1857,  but  resolved  that, 
"however  desirable  separate  Normal  Schools,"  the  act 
did  not  empower  them  to  take  any  steps  other  than  to 
receive  proposals.  The  state  university  had  been  specifi- 
cally excluded  from  the  benefits  of  the  act,  and  the  next 
important  step  which  was  taken,  brought  Lathrop's 
administration  to  an  end. 

"It  has  fallen  to  the  lot  of  no  public  institution  of 
learning  with  which  I  have  been  associated  in  the  course 
of  a  long  professional  life  to  encounter  the  same  amount 
of  misapprehension,  jealousy,  and  misrepresentation,  as 
have  lain  in  the  way  of  our  beginnings  here, ' '  Chancellor 
Lathrop  wrote  to  the  Milwaukee  Sentinel  in  1856.  To 
separate  the  just  from  the  unjust  criticism  and  to  dis- 
entangle the  personal,  political,  sectional,  and  sectarian 
animosities  which  entered  into  this  extraordinary  atti- 
tude toward  the  university  in  the  middle  fifties  is  now 
well-nigh  impossible.  That  it  was  the  most  disreputable 
period  of  Wisconsin  political  life  was  doubtless  of  signifi- 
cance. Under  such  conditions,  the  rivals  of  the  univer- 
sity might  well  believe  that  "a  public  institution  could 
not  succeed."  At  the  same  time,  they  were  ready  to 
take  advantage  of  the  very  conditions  they  deplored  to 
annihilate  the  institution  and  divide  the  spoils.  The 
chancellor  had  early  called  attention  to  the  "distrust 
of  state  universities"  which  was  "fostered  by  the 
rivalry  of  denominational  colleges."-  His  suggestion, 
quoted  above,  that  the  denominational  colleges  should 
specialize  in  theology,  had  a  fine,  unintentional  irony 
that  must  have  rankled  with  some,  nor  was  it  entirely 
blunted  by  his  plea  that  there  be  "no  unworthy  rivalry 
in  the  great  cause  of  education."    In  Michigan,  it  will 


108  WISCONSIN 

be  recalled,  sectarian  opposition  was  propitiated,  at  the 
outset,  by  distributing  the  professorships  among  the 
clergy  of  the  various  denominations.  No  concessions 
of  this  kind  were  made  in  Wisconsin,  though  there  was 
"a  perpetual  pressure  for  place  in  the  university"  and 
"about  every  sectarian  denomination  had  lain  down  on 
it  for  a  professorship. ' '  The  placing  of  the  second  land 
grant  on  the  market  was  a  signal  that  the  state  was 
about  to  "cut  another  melon"  and,  since  some  natural, 
if  not  justifiable,  criticism  of  the  business  management 
and  educational  achievements  of  the  university  was 
beginning  to  be  circulated,  hope  and  cupidity  joined 
hands. 

Accordingly,  in  the  spring  of  1855,  petitions  were 
presented  to  the  legislature  asking  that  the  university 
be  discontinued  and  its  fund  distributed  among  the 
colleges  already  established  in  the  state ;  a  bill  to  repeal 
the  university  charter  and  so  dispose  of  the  income  was 
introduced  into  the  legislature,  but  was  withdrawn  be- 
fore coming  to  a  vote.  There  is  good  reason  to  suppose 
that  there  was  treachery  at  this  time  within  the  board  of 
regents  itself.  Contemporary  allusions  bear  out  the 
conjecture  that  an  effort  of  a  group  of  the  regents,  in 
the  early  part  of  the  year,  to  bring  about  a  suspension 
of  the  university,  pending  a  reorganization,  was  mali- 
ciously motived.  The  movement  was  headed  by  Alex- 
ander T.  Gray,  secretary  of  state,  who  shortly  after 
gained  unenviable  notoriety  in  connection  with  the  land 
transactions  of  this  year.  At  a  show  of  strength,  on  the 
issue  of  filling  the  chair  of  Chemistry,  this  party  was 
defeated  by  a  vote  of  five  to  four. 

One  of  the  most  unguarded  attacks  on  the  university 
was  that  by  Senator  Charles  Clement  of  Racine,  on  the 
floor   of   the  state  senate,   March   27,    1856.     Senator 


THE  DAYS  OP  THE  CHANCELLORS      109 

Clement  compared  the  university  with  Racine  College 
to  the  disparagement  of  the  former,  both  as  to  the  grade 
of  instruction  and  as  to  its  per  capita  cost.  He  ridiculed 
the  "high-falutin'  "  accounts  of  the  university  in  the 
reports  of  the  board  of  regents,  and  complained  that 
the  money  derived  from  the  Congressional  grant  for  a 
university  was  being  squandered  "for  the  instruction 
of  boys  in  those  studies  which  are  or  ought  to  be  taught 
in  every  district  school  in  the  state."  The  fund,  he 
said,  should  remain  unappropriated  until  the  class  of 
students  for  whom  this  munificence  was  designed 
should  "knock  at  the  door  of  the  university,"  or,  and 
here  he  unmasked  the  underlying  animus  of  the  attack, 
they  should  "devote  a  part  of  this  fund  to  those  colleges 
in  the  state  which  are  now  offering  instruction  in  proper 
collegiate  studies."  The  opportunity  for  this  speech  had 
come  upon  the  motion  to  appropriate  to  the  use  of  the 
board  of  regents,  for  the  ensuing  year,  the  income  of  the 
university  fund  in  accordance  with  the  act  of  1854. 
Earlier  in  the  session,  a  bill  to  rescind  this  law  and 
transfer  to  the  regents  the  administration  of  the  fund, 
but  requiring  from  them  an  annual  accounting  to  the 
legislature,  had  been  introduced  by  Senator  Charles 
Dunn,  a  member  of  the  board  of  regents.  The  bill 
had  been  favorably  reported  back  by  the  Committee  on 
Education,  but  had  been  once  more  referred  to  a  special 
committee  which  had  reported  adversely  upon  it,  saying 
in  support  of  this  action:  "All  experience  will  show  that 
educational  institutions,  either  academic  or  collegiate, 
which  are  in  some  degree  dependent  on  annual  appro- 
priations, do  better  work  than  those  which,  being  re- 
moved from  want  and  frequent  accountability,  relax  in 
their  efforts  and  decline  in  their  usefulness,  from  the 
very  consciousness  of  being  so  removed  from  such  want 


110  WISCONSIN 

and  accountability. ' '  Two  thousand  copies  of  this  report 
and  an  equal  number  of  the  Racine  senator's  speech 
were  ordered  printed  for  distribution. 

The  legislature  of  the  succeeding  year  proved  more 
friendly.  It  authorized  the  $40,000  loan  for  the  erection 
of  the  third  building  and  provided  for  the  annual 
appropriation  by  routine  of  the  university  fund  income. 
The  very  next  legislature,  however,  rescinded  the  latter 
provision.  The  nature  of  the  appropriation  for  the 
"main  edifice"  was  widely  misunderstood.  "A  corre- 
spondent of  a  Racine  paper  had  the  sublime  impudence 
to  represent  that  $40,000  was  asked  for  by  the  Regents 
to  build  houses  for  the  Professors  and  the  falsehood 
went  the  rounds  of  the  press.  .  .  .  People  of  the  state, 
even  legislators,  verily  supposed  the  appropriation  was 
made  from  the  state  Treasury. ' ' x 

The  struggle  between  the  university  administration 
and  its  foes  reached  its  height  in  the  spring  of  1858. 
The  fight  began  in  April  and  was  waged  with  great  vigor, 
both  on  the  floor  of  the  legislature  and  in  the  press. 
"The  crusade  against  the  university"  was  "this  year 
led  by  Mr.  Temple  Clark,  of  Manitowoc."  He  was 
accused  of  deriving  his  strong  personal  bias  from  some 
"woman  with  a  grievance";  but  "other  senators  repre- 
senting local  and  sectarian  institutions  gladly  followed 
his  lead."  On  the  consideration  of  a  bill  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  an  Agricultural  College,  pursuant  to 
recommendations  of  the  State  Agricultural  Society  and 
of  Governor  Randall 's  message,  sectional  eloquence  broke 
out  afresh.  The  leading  orator  on  this  occasion  was 
Senator   Bennett   of  Rock   County,    at  that   time   the 

1  From  a  communication  by  Horace  A.  Tenney,  at  this  time 
member  of  the  board  of  regents,  who  warmly  defended  the 
university  in  the  press. 


THE  DAYS  OP  THE  CHANCELLORS      111 

richest  agricultural  section;  its  county  seat  was  Janes- 
ville,  the  bitterest  rival  of  the  city  of  Madison,  and  its 
educational  affiliations  were  with  Beloit  College,  the 
most  successful  sectarian  foundation  in  the  state.  The 
farmers,  his  constituents,  Senator  Bennett  declared,  were 
opposed  to  such  an  enactment ;  the  bill  contemplated,  he 
said,  "only  another  institution  like  the  enormous  pile  on 
yonder  hill  which  is  an  eyesore  to  the  people  of  the 
state, — another  institution  to  plunder  and  rob  the 
Treasury. ' ' 

Simultaneously  the  Janesville  Gazette  fired  its  annual 
pasquil.  The  university,  it  declared,  was  "a  gross  and 
unmitigated  humbug,"  "a  common  school  gotten  up  for 
the  benefit  of  Madison";  the  writer  "guessed"  that  the 
professors  each  year  became  more  slothful,  that  there 
were  "too  many  teachers  by  half  doing  nothing  and 
fattening  on  the  University  fund";  "a  public  institu- 
tion" was  "not  likely  to  succeed;  it  had  better  be 
abolished  and  the  general  government  requested  to 
donate  the  university  fund  to  the  school  fund."  Such 
reckless  rhodomontade  was  far  from  representing  the 
better  sense  either  of  the  people  or  of  the  legislature; 
yet  it  contained  a  certain  element  of  truth.  And  the 
popularity  of  any  form  of  attack  upon  the  state  institu- 
tion indicated  a  wide  and  dangerous  dissatisfaction  with 
university  policy.  In  the  face  of  this  temper  it  was 
futile  to  demolish  specific  absurdities  by  showing  that 
only  seven  students  in  the  university  were  less  than 
sixteen  years  of  age,  or  that  there  were  thirty  students 
from  without  the  state  and  eighty-two  from  other  por- 
tions of  Wisconsin,  as  against  sixty-two  from  the  city 
of  Madison.  To  set  forth  the  arduous  hours  of  instruc- 
tion of  most  of  the  faculty  or  to  attempt  to  explain  the 
intricate  processes  by  which  the  finances  of  the  institu- 


112  WISCONSIN 

tion  had  come  to  grief  would  be  equally  bootless.  What 
was  needed  was  the  appearance,  at  least,  of  a  complete 
change  of  policy. 

The  movement  toward  such  a  change  was  begun  by 
the  legislature  itself  and  has  usually  been  construed  as 
an  act  of  hostility  toward  the  university;  yet  it  is 
exceedingly  doubtful  if  it  ought  to  be  so  interpreted. 
Two  bills  for  the  reorganization  of  the  university  were 
introduced  during  this  session.  The  first,  generally 
known  as  "the  Clark  bill,"  was  introduced  in  the 
senate,  April  19,  by  the  Select  Joint  Committee  on 
university  affairs  of  which  Senator  Clark  was  chairman. 
The  "Robbins  Bill"  which  passed  the  assembly,  but 
failed  to  become  a  law,  resembled  the  other  in  general 
purpose  but  differed  in  important  details.  Both  bills 
proposed  to  reorganize  the  university  so  as  to  make  it  a 
consolidated  group  of  technical  and  professional  schools. 
The  main  object  of  the  reorganization  is  clearly  set  forth 
in  a  Report  of  the  Committee  on  Education  of  the 
assembly,  of  which  Hanmer  Robbins  of  Platteville  was 
chairman.  "Our  educational  institutions,"  declared  the 
report,  "must  spring  naturally  from  the  wants  of  the 
people.  .  .  .  The  university,  in  its  present  form,  is 
essentially  a  college  with  its  classical  curriculum  and  a 
preparatory  department  attached."  The  opposition  to 
the  university,  the  committee  stated,  was  due  to  the 
fact  that  it  did  not  "occupy  its  true  educational  posi- 
tion." The  committee  believed  that  denominational 
schools  would  provide  for  classical  education.  "The 
university  should  consist  of  a  series  of  departments  or 
schools,  as,  for  instance  the  normal,  agricultural,  mining, 
engineering,  etc.,  developed  in  the  order  of  their  indus- 
trial importance."  The  wants  of  the  public  would  be 
better  served  if  these  were  made  departments  of  the 


THE  DAYS  OP  THE  CHANCELLORS      113 

university,  "concentrating  the  means  of  the  state  into 
an  institution  which  would  meet  the  need  of  the  masses 
for  technical  education." 

To  accomplish  this  object  the  Robbins  bill  ordained 
that  the  university  should  consist  of  nine  departments, 
viz.,  of  Agriculture,  of  Engineering,  of  Commerce, 
of  the  Theory  and  Art  of  Elementary  Instruction,  of 
the  Mathematics  and  Natural  Sciences,  of  Philosophy, 
of  Law,  of  Medicine.  It  provided  for  the  elimination 
of  the  preparatory  department  after  a  term  of  years, 
required  that  the  normal  department  should  be  put  into 
immediate  operation  and  that  the  regents  should  exer- 
cise promptly  the  power  already  conferred  upon  them 
by  law  of  admitting  females  to  the  benefits  of  the  uni- 
versity on  an  equal  footing  with  the  other  sex.  In  addi- 
tion to  the  changes  in  the  organization  of  the  university 
some  important  changes  were  made  in  regard  to  its  gov- 
ernment. The  power  of  the  chancellor  was  limited  by 
making  him  ex  officio  a  member,  but  not  president,  of 
the  board  of  regents.  Also  the  bill  proposed  to  regulate 
the  constitution  of  the  board  of  regents  by  providing 
that  in  the  future  not  more  than  three  should  be  elected 
from  any  one  county.  To  secure  a  more  full  attendance 
upon  the  meetings  of  the  board,  a  provision  was  inserted, 
vacating  the  seats  of  those  who  should  hereafter  be 
absent  "from  two  successive  regular  meetings  thereof." 

Serious  in  spirit,  intelligent,  and  temperate  in  tone, 
this  bill  with  the  accompanying  report  marks  a  whole- 
some change  in  the  demeanor  of  the  legislature  toward 
university  affairs.  Whether  one  agreed  with  the  pro- 
gramme laid  out  or  not,  it  was  intelligible  and  it  was 
honest.  "What  the  cooler  sense  of  the  legislature  now 
proposed  was,  not  annihilation  of  the  university,  but  a 
reconstruction  which  should  bring  it  into  closer  corre- 


114  WISCONSIN 

spondence  with  the  wants  of  the  people.  The  erection 
of  the  technical  departments  of  agriculture,  engineering, 
etc.,  into  coordinate  schools  indicated,  to  be  sure,  an 
impatient  desire  for  a  more  energetic  development  of 
these  activities,  but  it  indicated,  also,  a  disposition  on 
the  part  of  the  legislature  to  stand  back  of  the  univer- 
sity as  the  agency  for  correlating  in  a  single  institution 
all  the  higher  educational  activities  of  the  state.  To 
the  chancellor  and  regents  the  criticism  of  their  policy 
implied  in  the  new  plan,  coupled,  as  it  was,  with  the  pro- 
posed changes  in  the  government  of  the  university, 
might  well  seem  to  be  only  a  culmination  of  recent  bitter 
attacks  upon  the  institution  as  such;  but,  in  reality,  in 
so  far  as  the  university  was  a  state  institution  which  did 
not  stand  or  fall  with  any  particular  group  of  persons 
or  policies,  the  proposed  reorganization  amounted  to  a 
re-adoption  of  the  university  by  the  people.  There  are 
ample  indications  that  the  state  was  by  this  time  heartily 
sick  of  its  orgy  of  political  selfishness  and  frivolity.  Had 
it  not  been  for  fast-coming  events  which  soon  over- 
shadowed all  other  concerns,  it  is  highly  probable  that 
the  state  government  would  have  bent  itself  very  soon 
to  the  task  of  building  up  the  university  with  something 
of  the  spirit  which  animated  its  efforts  at  the  close  of 
the  war. 

Decency  and  proportion,  alike,  counsel  against  deep 
delving  in  venerable  scandals.  It  is  necessary,  however, 
to  observe  that  there  was,  for  the  time,  a  want  of  perfect 
unanimity  in  the  faculty  itself.  Some  of  the  faculty 
thought  that  the  chancellor,  by  virtue  of  his  influential 
position  in  the  board  of  regents,  was  vested  with  dispro- 
portionate authority,  and  that  the  faculty  were  insuffici- 
ently consulted  on  matters  of  internal  management. 
Also,  they  appear  to  have  agreed  with  outside  critics 


THE  DAYS  OP  THE  CHANCELLORS      115 

that  the  chancellor  was  not  fully  abreast  of  the  times 
and  not  dealing  competently  with  the  new  demands 
in  university  education.  The  most  aggressive  of  the  re- 
actionary group  was  Professor  Conover.  Together  with 
Professor  Carr,  he  had  been  in  close  relations  with  the 
education  committee  during  the  recent  session  of  the 
legislature  and  had  been  largely  instrumental  in  reshap- 
ing the  amorphous  Clark  bill  into  the  more  logical  and 
practicable  Robbins  measure.  Of  the  same  party  was 
Professor  Kursteiner,  a  fiery  young  Swiss  who  had  per- 
sonal differences  with  the  chancellor,  and  there  is  good 
reason  to  believe  that  Professor  Sterling  was  in  sympathy 
with  the  main  features  of  the  new  plan.  Professor 
Read,  it  appears,  aligned  himself  with  the  chancellor. 

The  Robbins  bill,  however,  having  died  on  the  cal- 
endar, the  chancellor  and  regents  determined  to  fore- 
stall a  return  to  the  subject  on  the  part  of  the  legislature 
by  means  of  a  voluntary  reorganization.  A  special  meet- 
ing, called  for  June  2,  failed  of  a  quorum  and  adjourned, 
after  listening  to  an  address  from  the  chancellor,  in 
which  he  interpreted  the  recent  agitation  in  the  legis- 
lature. The  following  day,  having  obtained  the  attend- 
ance of  another  Madison  member,  the  regents  proceeded 
with  their  reorganization.  The  "Ordinance"  adopted  at 
this  meeting  purported  to  carry  out  the  designs  of  the 
Robbins  bill  but,  whether  astutely  or  stupidly,  differed 
radically  from  it.  The  regents  had,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
no  authority  to  change  the  "organic  act"  in  the  manner 
proposed  by  the  bill  which  had  passed  the  assembly. 
They,  therefore,  resorted  to  the  device  of  reconstituting 
the  Department  of  Science,  Literature,  and  the  Arts  as 
a  group  of  "Schools,  to  wit,  of  Agriculture,  of  Com- 
merce, of  Engineering,  of  Natural  Science,  of  Philology, 
of  Polity."    How  far  this  absurd  form  of  organization 


116  WISCONSIN 

was  due  to  the  legal  necessities  of  the  case,  how  far  to  a 
failure  to  apprehend  the  logic  of  the  Robbins  bill,  or  how 
far  it  was  (as  was  openly  charged  at  the  time)  "a  mere 
trick  to  hoodwink  the  public"  while  accomplishing  ul 
terior  ends  of  the  chancellor  and  regents,  cannot  b< 
determined  with  certainty.  The  last  imputation  receivec 
some  color  of  probability  from  the  fact  that  the  "Ordi- 
nance" sheltered  a  clause  abolishing  all  existing  chairs  of 
instruction  and  declaring  all  appointments  thereto  null 
and  void, — a  revolutionary  action  which  the  regents  held 
to  be  a  necessary  feature  of  their  scheme  of  reorganiza- 
tion, but  which  had  been  in  nowise  contemplated  by  the 
Robbins  plan.  This  clause  was  opposed,  not  only  by 
Professor  Carr,  who  was  at  this  time  a  member  of  the 
board,  but  by  Regents  Draper  and  Pickard  and  later 
McMynn,  all  of  whom,  from  their  occupations  and  char- 
acter may  be  supposed  to  have  had  educational,  as 
opposed  to  personal  and  political,  ends  in  view.  It  was 
carried  by  the  chancellor,  plus  the  group  known  in 
contemporary  diatribe  as  "the  Madison  conclave,"  viz., 
Regents  Vilas,  Abbott,  Jones  (secretary  of  state),  and 
Tenney,  author  of  the  "Ordinance." 

If  the  charge  was  true,  that  the  plan  was  merely  a 
ruse  to  meet  the  popular  demand  for  change  by  a 
nominal  reconstruction  of  departments  while,  at  the  same 
time,  bringing  about  certain  changes  of  personnel  which 
they  themselves  desired  to  effect,  the  chancellor  and  his 
party  shot  beyond  their  mark.  At  the  preliminary  meet- 
ing in  June,  a  committee  was  appointed  to  confer  with 
the  normal  school  regents  with  a  view  to  cooperation 
between  the  two  boards,  and  another  to  open  correspond- 
ence with  reference  to  a  reconstitution  of  the  faculty. 
The  chancellor  was  appointed  chairman  of  the  second 
committee,  a  fact  which  did  not  escape  sarcastic  com- 


THE  DAYS  OF  THE  CHANCELLORS      117 

ment.  At  the  semi-annual  meeting,  July  17,  the  chan- 
cellor reported  that  substantial  progress  had  been  made 
in  negotiations  with  the  normal  school  regents  on  the 
one  hand  and  with  Dr.  Barnard  of  Connecticut  on  the 
)ther,  and  recommended  that  the  board  consider  the  elec- 
tion of  Barnard  to  the  headship  of  the  School  of  Normal 
Instruction  in  the  university.  The  normal  school 
regents  had  promised,  if  this  were  done,  to  appoint  him 
to  a  joint  post  of  General  Agent  for  the  organization  of 
the  normal  system  of  the  state.  "In  order  to  disem- 
barrass the  action  of  the  board  in  this  behalf,"  the  chan- 
cellor tendered  his  resignation. 

Two  days  later,  the  resignation  was  accepted,  and 
Henry  Barnard  was  elected  chancellor  of  the  university. 
In  the  meantime,  considerable  changes  were  made  in  the 
reorganization  ordinance,  the  necessary  chairs  of  instruc- 
tion were  provided  for  and  the  board  proceeded  to  the 
election  of  the  new  faculty.  Reluctant  to  humiliate  the 
chancellor,  the  regents  made  what  amends  lay  in  their 
power  by  the  adoption  of  eulogistic  resolutions  and  by 
promptly  reelecting  him  to  his  old  chair  of  Ethics  and 
Civil  Polity.  Sterling,  Read,  and  Carr  were  reelected, 
with  little  opposition,  to  their  respective  professorships ; 
Kursteiner  and  Conover  were  not  reappointed.  After 
several  ballots,  J.  C.  Pickard  was  elected  over  the  former 
to  the  professorship  of  Modern  Languages,  his  brother 
J.  L.  Pickard  casting  one  of  the  three  votes  against  him. 
He  was  declared  by  many  to  be  inadequately  equipped 
for  the  duties  of  this  chair,  and  was  superseded  two  years 
later  by  John  P.  Fuchs,  a  protege  of  Carl  Schurz.  The 
fiercest  contest,  however,  came  upon  the  election  of  a 
professor  of  Ancient  Languages.  There  was  prolonged 
balloting,  running  over  two  days,  during  which  five  of 
the  board  stood  firmly  for  the  reappointment  of  Con- 


118  WISCONSIN 

over ;  but,  finally,  on  the  twelfth  ballot,  the  voting  broke 
in  favor  of  J.  D.  Butler  of  Wabash  College.  The  new 
staff  was  completed  by  the  appointment,  to  a  newly 
created  instructorship  in  Engineering,  of  T.  D.  Coryell, 
the  first  graduate  of  the  university  to  be  given  a  post  on 
its  faculty. 

Henry  Barnard  was  not  destined  to  occupy  the  sig- 
nificant place  in  the  annals  of  the  University  of  Wiscon- 
sin which  he  achieved  in  the  history  of  American  educa- 
tion at  large.  Ill  health  prevented  him  from  taking  up 
his  duties  until  near  the  end  of  the  academic  year, 
1858-59,  and  after  repeated  interruptions,  a  formidable 
recurrence  of  his  nervous  disorder  compelled  him  to 
retire  permanently  from  the  state  before  the  expiration 
of  another  year.  Chancellor  Lathrop's  resignation  be- 
came effective  in  January,  1859;  at  Barnard's  request, 
he  remained  in  charge  until  the  end  of  the  academic 
year;  he  then  withdrew  entirely  from  the  university. 
Barnard  arrived  toward  the  end  of  May,  addressed  the 
board  of  regents  at  a  called  meeting,  June  22,  and  was 
installed  on  Commencement  Day,  July  27,  1859.  Early 
in  May,  following,  he  returned  to  the  East,  proffering  his 
resignation  in  June.  The  regents,  giving  up  hope  of  his 
immediate  recovery,  formally  terminated  his  connection 
with  the  university  in  January,  1861.  During  a  good 
share  of  the  year,  1859-60,  and  for  a  term  of  years  there- 
after, the  internal  administration  of  the  university  was 
in  the  hands  of  the  faculty,  under  the  chairmanship  of 
Professor  Sterling. 

What  might  have  been  the  subsequent  history  of  the 
institution  had  it  retained  Barnard's  leadership  is,  of 
course,  conjectural.  Probably  the  university  would  have 
taken  much  more  promptly  an  important  position  in  the 
normal  system  of  the  state.    Whether  its  failure  to  ac- 


THE  DAYS  OP  THE  CHANCELLORS      119 

quire  this  position  of  influence  is  matter  for  regret  may 
be  doubted.  Barnard's  chief  interest  lay  quite  frankly 
outside  the  realm  of  university  education.  Six  years 
earlier,  he  had  declined  the  presidency  of  Michigan  and 
it  seems  clear  that  he  was  attracted  to  Wisconsin  mainly 
by  the  promise  of  liberal  provision  for  normal  instruction 
in  the  state  and  by  the  opportunity  to  uplift  the  teaching 
profession  and  the  education  of  the  masses.  During  the 
short  and  broken  period  that  he  was  in  the  state  his 
energies  were  almost  exclusively  directed  toward  these 
ends.  A  meeting  of  the  State  Teachers'  Association  in 
Madison,  coincident  with  his  inauguration,  gave  him  an 
early  opportunity  to  appear  before  the  teachers  of  the 
state  and  explain  his  projected  relations  to  them.  At 
this  time,  he  publicly  offered  to  contribute,  out  of  his 
own  means,  one-half  the  salary  of  a  state  agent  to  awaken 
interest  in  popular  education.  The  following  autumn, 
sixteen  teachers'  institutes  were  held  at  different  points 
in  the  state,  of  which  ten  were  visited  by  the  chancellor 
of  the  university.  The  prestige  of  his  name  drew  large 
audiences.  At  a  final  round-up,  held  in  Madison,  Bar- 
nard, summarizing  the  achievements  of  the  first  season, 
estimated  that  the  institutes  had  convej^ed  direct  instruc- 
tion to  fifteen  hundred  teachers,  involving  twelve  hun- 
dred schools  and  forty  thousand  pupils.  He  estimated 
that  ten  thousand  people  had  attended  the  evening  lec- 
tures. Eighteen  institutes  were  projected  for  the  fol- 
lowing year.  Besides  giving  himself  to  these  platform 
labors,  Barnard  composed  a  voluminous  mass  of  Papers 
for  Teachers  which  he  published  at  his  own  expense  for 
circulation  in  the  state.  The  announcement  of  a  Normal 
Course  commencing  on  the  tenth  of  April,  1860,  brought 
together  at  the  university  a  class  of  thirty  "Ladies" 
and  twenty-nine  "Gents";  but  the  chancellor  was  then 


120  WISCONSIN 

on  the  eve  of  his  final  departure  and  their  instruction 
fell  into  other  hands. 

On  the  part  of  the  university,  the  traditional  feeling 
toward  Barnard  seems  to  have  been  one  of  mild  resent- 
ment. One  who  was  a  student  in  the  early  sixties  has 
referred  to  him  as  "an  ornamental  Chancellor  whose 
only  known  function  in  college  affairs  was  the  periodical 
drawing  of  his  salary."  Investigation  proves  the  im- 
plied charge  in  regard  to  salary  to  have  been  unjust. 
On  the  contrary,  he  loaned  the  regents  three  thousand 
dollars  for  the  completion  of  University  Hall.  But  uni- 
versity folk  were  naturally  offended  by  Barnard's  rela- 
tive indifference  to  the  institution.  There  is  a  tradition 
that  he  "never  gave  a  lecture  or  heard  a  recitation  and 
met  the  students  but  once  in  chapel."  Insubordination 
of  the  students  during  the  year  of  his  incumbency  ap- 
pears to  have  been  expressive  of  dissatisfaction  with  the 
changed  order  of  affairs  with  reference  both  to  the  chan- 
cellor and  the  professor  of  Ancient  Languages ;  and  the 
faculty,  a  little  later,  in  calling  attention  to  the  need  of  a 
chancellor,  pointedly  suggested  the  choice  of  some  man 
"not  too  great  for  the  place."  Barnard's  first  address 
to  the  board  of  regents  contained  some  interesting  pro- 
posals, but  inasmuch  as  they  did  not  become  effective 
they  hardly  form  a  salient  part  of  university  history. 
He  condemned  the  dormitory  system,  declaring  that  this 
drain  upon  the  resources  of  the  institution  must  be 
brought  to  an  end  "at  once,  thoroughly,  and  forever"; 
but  no  steps  were  taken  to  carry  this  recommendation 
into  effect.  During  the  first  year  after  the  reorganiza- 
tion the  work  of  the  preparatory  department  was  re- 
stricted to  instruction  in  Latin,  Greek,  and  Mathematics, 
and  the  remaining  elementary  subjects  were  removed  to 
a  separate  "commercial"  department,  the  latter  created 


THE  DAYS  OF  THE  CHANCELLORS      121 

by  annexing  a  local  business  college  under  the  direction 
of  David  H.  Tullis.  After  Barnard's  arrival,  the  work 
of  the  preparatory  department  was,  on  his  suggestion, 
transferred  to  the  village  high  school,  of  which  Pro- 
fessor Conover  had  become  principal.  Two  years  later, 
however,  a  tutor  was  again  appointed,  the  old  prepara- 
tory system  was  resumed,  and  the  reorganization  pro- 
vision for  its  discontinuance  at  the  end  of  five  years  was 
conveniently  forgotten.  In  other  respects,  save  for  the 
few  changes  in  the  personnel  of  the  faculty,  the  reorgani- 
zation was  merely  nominal.  The  several  "University 
Schools"  corresponded  to  nothing  in  the  actual  opera- 
tion of  the  institution,  and,  after  a  couple  of  years,  the 
various  "faculties,"  with  the  shadowy  chancellor  at  the 
head  of  each,  surrendered  their  space  in  the  annual 
catalogue. 

With  the  elimination  of  Chancellor  Lathrop  from  the 
government  of  the  university  and  the  fading  of  the 
hopes  which  attached  to  his  successor,  there  passed  the 
first  phase  of  this  experiment  in  higher  education  under 
popular  control.  Year  by  year,  popular  hostility  to  the 
administration  of  the  institution  had  focussed  with  in- 
creasing bitterness  against  the  first  chancellor,  and 
although  one  ought  not  to  overemphasize  the  chancel- 
lor's personal  responsibility  for  the  mistakes  and  failures 
of  these  years,  there  is  good  warrant  for  attaching  some 
significance  to  his  personal  qualities  and  ideas. 

Chancellor  Lathrop  has  been  characterized  by  Pro- 
fessor Butler  as  "an  elegant  scholar  and  an  elegant 
man."  "His  eminent  qualities  and  fine  attainments  as 
a  man  and  a  scholar,"  the  regents  affirmed,  "excite  our 
admiration  and  command  our  unqualified  respect  and 
esteem. ' '  A  letter  ' '  signed  by  every  student  in  the  uni- 
versity," published  in  the  newspapers  when  his  resigna- 


122  WISCONSIN 

tion  was  imminent,  attested  the  warm  regard  and  loyalty 
of  the  student  body.  "He  was,"  we  are  told  by  a  stu- 
dent of  his  day,  "a  very  pleasant  and  dignified  gentle- 
man, brilliant  in  conversation,  as  well  as  a  man  of  learn- 
ing and  culture,  and  easily  won  and  always  retained  the 
admiration  and  respect  of  all  his  pupils."  Bishop 
Fallows  has  characterized  his  manner  as  "courtly,  dig- 
nified, and  yet  affable."  An  elderly  lady  of  competent 
taste  has  described  him  to  me  as  "strictly  au  fait."  We 
get  an  impression  of  a  rather  small,  very  neat  figure  of 
handsome  appearance,  in  frock-coat,  Henry  Clay  stock, 
and  silk  hat.  His  writing,  which  we  know  chiefly  from 
his  annual  reports,  is  correct  and  forcible,  tending  to- 
ward a  formal  elegance  of  diction  and  expanding,  at 
times,  into  a  somewhat  pretentious  statement  of  insig- 
nificant matters.  At  such  times  we  are  apt  to  have  an 
uncomfortable  feeling  that  he  is  "putting  up  a  front." 
And  this  coincides  with  accounts  of  his  manner  of  en- 
countering legislators  on  their  visits  of  inspection.  The 
students  are  said  to  have  admired  his  mastery  on  such 
occasions;  but  the  visitors  were  apparently  less  taken 
in  than  the  boys  supposed.  Against  the  rough  back- 
ground of  hard-headed  frontiersmen  and  pioneer 
squabbles,  the  first  chancellor  presents  a  pleasant  and 
slightly  pathetic  figure.  He  seems  to  have  had  an  in- 
sufficient grasp  of  the  business  necessities  of  the  situa- 
tion and  he  was  little  adapted  to  do  battle  with  the  deter- 
mined brigands  who  infested  public  life  during  a  good 
share  of  his  regime.  He  never  acquired  any  force  in  the 
public  life  of  the  state.  And,  though  he  was  intelligent 
enough  to  grasp  and  to  state  with  fair  adequacy  the 
new  university  idea,  his  heart  and  his  practical  force 
were  with  the  older  system  of  education. 

In  fact,  Lathrop  was  so  little  in  sympathy  with  the 


THE  DAYS  OP  THE  CHANCELLORS      123 

underlying  idea  of  the  reorganization  proposed  at  the 
end  of  his  administration  that  he  considered  it  purely 
nominal  and  accepted  it  merely  to  appease  popular  sen- 
timent. His  "communications"  to  the  board  of  regents 
upon  this  subject  are  among  the  most  substantial  of  his 
utterances  that  have  come  down  to  us.  His  opinion  as 
to  the  relative  responsibility  of  the  state  toward  general 
and  toward  practical  education  was  the  reverse  of  the 
popular  opinion.  The  primary  object  of  the  general  gov- 
ernment in  endowing,  and  of  the  state  constitution  in 
ordaining  the  university,  he  stoutly  maintained,  had  been 
to  provide  for  liberal  education.  As  between  liberal  and 
professional  education,  if  either  must  be  left  to  individ- 
ual enterprise,  it  should  be  the  latter.  He  gave  pre- 
cedency over  other  technical  departments  to  that  of 
normal  instruction,  because  this  was  most  closely  related 
to  general  education,  and  he  placed  the  "learned  pro- 
fessions" ahead  of  technical  and  industrial  vocations  in 
their  claims  on  the  university,  because,  "whether  we 
desire  it  or  not,  it  is  still  true,  that  a  more  liberal  style 
of  general  culture  is  demanded  in  these  professions  than 
in  the  others."  He  graded  the  various  professions  in  the 
order  of  their  ' '  social  rank  as  determined  by  the  amount 
of  personal  culture  essential  to  excellence  in  each." 
"The  farmer,"  he  declared,  "may  indulge  in  the  same 
professional  pride  with  the  lawyer  when  it  is  understood 
that  the  average  personal  culture  of  the  former  is  the 
same  as  that  of  the  latter. "  These  are  aristocratic  ideas ; 
such  views  were  little  apt  to  ingratiate  the  propounder 
of  them  with  the  frontier  society  in  which  he  was  com- 
pelled to  operate. 

The  same  order  of  sympathies  determined  his  attitude 
toward  faculty  organization:  "There  are  two  plans  on 
which  the  'Faculty'  may  be  constituted  and  the  same 


124  WISCONSIN 

general  results  reached.  One  is  by  distributing  out  to  the 
several  chairs,  different  branches  of  philosophy  and 
science,  and  pushing  these  forward  in  courses  of  instruc- 
tion, to  their  outgrowth  in  the  Arts,  and  the  various 
forms  of  social  service.  The  other  is  to  distribute  to  the 
professorships  or  schools,  the  practical  business  processes, 
carrying  the  pupil  back  in  the  lecture  rooms  to  the 
science  and  the  philosophy  explanative  of  the  nature  and 
the  reasons  of  these  processes.  The  former  course  is 
natural  and  thorough,  and  tends  to  a  higher  order  of 
personal  culture;  the  latter  is  popular  and  superficial, 
but  productive  of  dexterity  and  skill."  He  ridiculed 
the  shallow  idea  that  an  institution  organized  on  the 
latter  plan  might  be  called  a  university  and  the  other  a 
mere  college:  "the  trumpets  have  flourished — the  name 
is  reformed,  and  that  is  all."  "The  pertinacity  with 
which  this  distinction  has  been  pushed  here, ' '  he  added, 
"is  a  phenomenon  in  the  educational  history  of  Wis- 
consin." It  is  clear  that  Chancellor  Lathrop  had  little 
notion  of  the  degree  of  specialization  which  was  soon  to 
be  introduced  into  the  teaching  of  applied  science,  and 
also  that  his  theory  was  in  direct  antithesis  to  the  popu- 
lar idea  of  the  university  which  conceived  of  it  as 
responsible  for  instruction  applicable  to  the  various  oc- 
cupations in  the  order,  not  of  the  personal  culture  in- 
volved in  each,  but  of  their  social  utility.  The  old  order 
was  changing,  slowly  yielding  place  to  the  new,  and 
Chancellor  Lathrop  belonged  to  the  old  order. 


^ 


The  Old  South  Dormitory 

(now  South  Hall) 


BUCOLICS 

Having  sketched  the  administrative  vicissitudes  of 
the  university  during  these  introductory  years  we  should 
now  have  a  look  at  its  inner  life ;  and  this  means  pri- 
marily student  life.  Large  as  it  bulks  ordinarily  in 
educational  histories,  usually  written,  it  should  be  ob- 
served, by  .representatives  of  its  own  point  of  view,  the 
faculty  is,  after  all,  from  some  points  of  view,  a  tertium 
quid.  Faculty  men  are  known  to  have  remarked  that 
university  life  would  be  ideal  if  one  could  be  rid  of  the 
students.  On  the  other  hand,  some  students  succeed 
fairly  well  in  realizing  an  ideal  which  is  the  reverse  of 
this.  Neither  element  is  quite  negligible  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  other.  And  unreal  as  the  faculty  frequently 
is  to  the  student — who  is  not  in  trouble — it  is  less  so  than 
the  administration.  I  well  remember  one  morning  in 
undergraduate  days  when,  making  my  way  tardily  to- 
ward a  class,  I  met  a  lot  of  fellows  prancing  homeward 
on  an  impromptu  holiday  and,  on  inquiring  the  cause  of 
their  hilarity,  was  greeted  with  the  jubilant  chant, 
"Regent  dead!"  Now  that  I  am  more  fully  aware  of 
that  gallant  gentleman  and  able  regent  whose  loss  to 
the  world  gave  us  a  Roman  holiday,  I  am  sensible  of  our 
unconscious  brutality.  Probably  no  "prof"  ever  suf- 
fered from  exactly  this  degree  of  student  willingness  to 
ignore  the  seriousness  of  an  occasion.  For  the  purposes 
of  the  present  chapter,  however,  the  faculty  will  be 

125 


126  WISCONSIN 

found  tucked  away  in  its  due  place,  as  one  of  the  factors 
of  student  life. 

A  central  condition  of  student  existence,  as  well  as 
one  of  the  business  problems  of  the  university  in  early 
days,  was  the  dormitory  system.  It  became  customary 
later  on  to  refer  to  the  dormitories  rather  regretfully  as 
if  they  had  been  a  misguided  extravagance  of  Chan- 
cellor Lathrop's  regime;  and  perhaps  they  were.  He 
insisted  on  them,  however,  and  so  far  as  I  can  find,  with- 
out challenge,  throughout  his  period  of  control ;  though 
he  reluctantly  admitted  in  his  last  official  document,  the 
report  to  Barnard,  that  perhaps  the  economic  necessity 
for  them  no  longer  existed.  One  suspects  that  he  at- 
tached importance  to  other  reasons  for  their  existence; 
but  the  reason  upon  which  he  laid  stress  in  his  published 
utterances  was  the  economic  one.  "The  subject  of  the 
supply  of  board  to  students,"  he  earlier  stated,  was  "a 
matter  of  paramount  importance  in  its  bearing  on  the 
patronage  of  the  university."  To  the  student  who  did 
not  live  in  Madison,  the  university  was  first  of  all  a 
hostelry.  Many  of  the  students  had  little  means.  Fre- 
quently they  worked  on  farms  and  attended  the  uni- 
versity only  during  the  winter  months,  or  they  taught 
in  country  schools  in  winter  and  returned  to  college  in 
the  spring.  At  these  seasons  of  the  year,  Madison  was 
always  full  of  legislators  and  there  was  great  difficulty 
in  securing  board.  The  only  part  of  the  village  that  had 
been  built  up  at  this  time  was  a  mile  away  from  the 
university,  and  even  had  it  been  nearer,  private  board 
was  beyond  the  means  of  the  majority  of  students. 

The  institution  must  provide  shelter  if  it  was  to  invite 
patronage  from  afar.  This  it  did  at  the  cheapest  pos- 
sible rate.  Rooms  in  the  dormitories  were  "$5.00  per 
term   (including  wood  and  janitor  service),"  in  1852. 


BUCOLICS  127 

Board,  without  lodging,  in  private  families,  was  esti- 
mated at  $1.25  to  $2.00  a  week.  In  the  "mess  hall," 
"expenses  of  the  table  need  not  exceed  80  cents  per  week 
to  each  member  of  the  association,"  declared  the  cata- 
logue. It  proved  somewhat  more  expensive.  The  actual 
cost  of  board  at  the  commons,  in  1855,  was  $1.72,  and, 
in  1857,  the  student-faculty  mess  at  South  Hall  ran 
$1.90,  a  week.  In  1859,  the  chancellor  reports:  "By  far 
the  greatest  number  of  our  students,  not  residents  of 
Madison,  board  themselves,  at  their  rooms,  at  an  expense 
varying  from  70  cents  to  $1  per  week."  John  Muir, 
who  was  at  the  university  two  or  three  years  after  this, 
relates  in  his  Autobiography  that,  in  order  to  save  money 
for  books  and  apparatus,  he  sometimes  subsisted  for  con- 
siderable periods  on  an  expenditure  of  fifty  cents  a  week 
for  food.  The  university  year  was  changed,  in  1853, 
from  two  terms  of  twenty  weeks,  to  three  terms  of  thir- 
teen weeks  each,  to  meet  the  convenience  of  students. 
This  released  the  farm  boy  for  the  spring  work  and 
opened  a  summer  term  to  the  rustic  schoolmaster.  At 
the  same  time,  tuition  was  reduced  from  ten  dollars  to 
five  dollars  and  "room,  heat,  etc.,"  to  three  dollars  per 
term.  The  necessary  expense  of  a  year  at  college  was 
estimated  in  the  catalogue  of  1858,  at  "$118,  viz.,  Tui- 
tion $12.00,  Room  $9.00,  Heat  $7.00,  Board  $75.00, 
Washing  $15.00,  with  the  possibility  of  a  refund  of  ten 
or  twelve  dollars  in  the  last  two  items!" 

The  creature  necessities,  we  will  not  say  comforts,  pro- 
vided for,  it  may  be  assumed  that  the  student 's  thoughts 
next  turned  to  his  studies.  Relatively  few  students  in 
those  days  went  to  college  simply  because  it  was  "the 
thing  to  do";  some  of  them  went,  no  doubt,  because  col- 
lege was  a  delightful  place  to  be,  offered  a  life  to  be 
preferred  over  the  hard  work  of  farm  and  shop;  a  few 


128  WISCONSIN 

went  because  they  "liked  to  study";  but  the  vast  ma- 
jority, and  those  especially  who  made  sacrifices  and 
worked  hard  to  win  their  way,  went  merely  to  "get  an 
education."  Getting  an  education  did  not  yet,  though 
we  have  seen  that  the  idea  was  beginning  to  have  promi- 
nence, mean  so  definitely  as  it  has  come  to  mean,  pre- 
paring for  some  particular  occupation.  Getting  an  edu- 
cation, so  far  as  it  was  a  matter  of  ambition,  meant 
raising  oneself  above  one's  fellows  through  the  acquisi- 
tion of  intellectual  power,  through  admission  to  the  intel- 
lectual life.  In  a  mercenary  sense,  it  seldom  meant 
anything  much  more  definite  than  a  preparation  to  live 
by  one's  wits  instead  of  by  one's  hands.  Because  of 
this  indefiniteness  it  is  apt  to  seem  to  us,  though  we 
may  be  deluded  on  this  point,  that  the  student  of  former 
times  possessed,  on  the  average,  a  purer  intellectual  curi- 
osity, than  his  successor  of  today.  Whether  this  was  the 
reason  or  whether  he  was  confined  to  them  by  the  poverty 
of  his  opportunities,  studies  occupied  a  good  share  of  the 
student's  time  and  interest  in  the  days  of  the  chan- 
cellors. 

Let  us,  then,  look  at  what  was  set  before  him.  We 
can  afford  to  give  our  attention  pretty  exclusively  to  the 
regular  classical  course,  since  at  this  time  and  for  a 
considerable  while  after,  it  was  the  backbone  of  the  col- 
lege, and  since  we  shall  be  occupied  later  with  the  de- 
partures from  it.  Those  whose  memories  go  back  a  little 
way,  even  if  they  did  not  pass  through  the  old-fashioned 
regular  course,  will  have  it  pretty  definitely  in  mind, 
for  it  persisted  in  slightly  modified  forms  up  to  a  rela- 
tively short  time  ago.  Younger  readers  may  be  inter- 
ested in  seeing  what,  precisely,  this  antiquated  scheme 
of  study  was  like.  I  shall  insert,  therefore,  a  tabulation 
of  subjects  compiled  from  the  catalogue  of  1858-59.    It 


BUCOLICS 


129 


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130  WISCONSIN 

may  be  taken  as  fairly  typical.  So  far  as  concerns  the 
difficulty  of  some  of  the  subjects,  it  is  slightly  more 
advanced  than  the  corresponding  course  of  ten  years 
later.  This  does  not  mean,  necessarily,  that  the  plane  of 
study  was  higher,  since  the  manner  of  teaching  was  of 
importance  as  well  as  the  titles  of  courses.  To  add  to  its 
historic  content,  I  have  included  in  the  table  the  probable 
teacher  of  each  subject.  In  this  year  there  was  a  return, 
only  temporary  however,  to  the  semester  term. 

The  pedagogic  ideal  underlying  this  scheme  of  subjects 
is  worthy  of  attention.  Mathematics,  Greek,  and  Latin 
furnished  the  main  substance  of  the  first  two  years  and 
were  continued  into  the  third,  carrying  the  student 
through  Calculus  to  Mechanics  in  Mathematics  and  to 
the  reading  of  Juvenal  in  the  Latin  and  of  Plato  in  the 
Greek.  Then  began  the  rounding  out  of  the  student's 
knowledge  by  analytic  and  descriptive  courses  in  the 
various  sciences  and  in  mental,  political,  literary,  and 
ethical  philosophy.  The  number  of  these  latter  subjects 
was  many  and  the  time  allotted  to  any  one  of  them  was 
brief;  but,  if  the  work  of  the  preceding  years  had  been 
well  done,  the  teacher  was  dealing  with  minds  which 
could  be  counted  on  to  possess  certain  definite  knowledge 
and  to  be  thoroughly  disciplined  in  memory,  perception, 
discrimination,  and  reason,  by  a  prolonged  course  of 
intensive  study  and  correction  in  mathematics  and 
language. 

It  was  an  orderly,  self-denying  scheme  of  study, 
patient  in  spirit  and  deliberate  in  movement,  which 
aimed  to  provide  a  discipline  in  principles  and  precision 
in  details,  rather  than  to  supply  information  that  was 
abundant,  exciting,  or  obviously  useful.  An  exact  and 
discriminative  mastery  of  a  limited  scheme  of  knowl- 
edge, crowned  by  a  philosophy,  was  the  object  in  view. 


BUCOLICS  131 

As  the  volume  of  knowledge  became  more  vast  and  the 
interest  in  its  utility  more  eager,  with  the  progress  of 
investigative  science,  the  system  went  to  pieces.  It  is 
by  no  means  certain  that  we  have  yet  devised  a  satis- 
factory substitute,  or  set  of  substitutes.  It  is  quite 
certain,  however,  that  the  old  scheme  had  ceased  to  be 
adequate  and  was  bound  to  go.  The  strain  on  its 
periphery  is  already  perceptible  in  the  programme  shown 
above.  A  year  later,  German,  because  of  its  obvious 
utility  in  a  state  containing  so  many  citizens  of  German 
birth,  was  crowded  into  the  fourth  year,  forcing  out  His- 
tory of  Civilization  and  reducing  the  time  devoted  to 
chemistry.  In  1860,  too,  a  so-called  " Scientific  Course" 
was  formulated.  This  we  learn  was  "the  same  as  the 
Classical,  omitting  the  Ancient  Languages,"  but  occu- 
pied only  three  years.  The  catalogue  explained  that 
"most  of  those  who  pursue  the  course,  however,  take 
Latin,  which  is  earnestly  recommended."  One  of  the 
advantages  of  this  course,  from  the  standpoint  of  popu- 
larity, was  the  absence  of  the  ancient  languages  from  the 
requirements  for  admission. 

The  teachers  with  whom  the  student  came  in  contact 
were  few  in  number.  At  no  point  in  his  course  would 
he  meet  habitually  more  than  three  men,  and  these  he 
met  daily.  When  we  remember  in  connection  with  this 
fact  the  smallness  of  the  classes,  we  see  that  the  student 
was  practically  under  a  system  of  intimate  tutorial  di- 
rection. During  his  first  three  years  he  would  have 
daily  drill  in  Mathematics,  followed,  in  his  third  year, 
by  lectures  and  demonstrations  in  Physics  and  Astron- 
omy, from  Professor  Sterling,  who  held  the  chair  of 
Mathematics  and  Natural  Philosophy  throughout  this 
period  and  continued  in  the  service  of  the  university  for 
many  years  to  come.    Every  graduate  of  the  university 


132  WISCONSIN 

for  upwards  of  a  quarter  century,  had  a  substantial 
share  of  his  instruction  from  this  one  man.  It  is  not 
surprising,  therefore,  that  Professor  Sterling,  with  his 
qualities  of  steadfastness,  loyalty  to  duty,  and  unfailing 
kindness,  was  long  held  in  affectionate  remembrance  by 
the  alumni  as  the  ' '  father  of  the  university. ' ' 

The  professor  of  Ancient  Languages  and  Literature 
would  be  met  by  the  student  twice  a  day  until  the  end 
of  his  junior  year.  This  post  was  first  occupied  by 
Obadiah  M.  Conover,  who  was  appointed  tutor  in  1850, 
and  advanced  to  the  chair  in  1852.  He  was  a  man  of 
refined  scholarship  and  delicate  literary  appreciation, 
and  occasionally  a  poet.  Some  of  his  verses  that  have 
been  preserved  are  not  greatly  inferior  to  the  better  work 
of  Longfellow  and  are  in  somewhat  the  same  taste.  His 
successor  was  Professor  James  Davie  Butler,  who  held 
the  chair  for  ten  years.  Professor  Butler  visited  Madi- 
son at  Commencement,  1857,  to  deliver  the  annual  ad- 
dress before  the  Literary  Societies.  A  fastidious  news- 
paper critic  referred  to  his  address  as  obscured  by  "the 
haze  of  paraded  scholarship,"  but  he  must  have  made  a 
favorable  impression  upon  the  authorities,  since  he  was 
called  to  the  university  the  following  year.  Both  Con- 
over  and  Butler  continued  to  reside  in  Madison  and  to 
associate  with  "the  university  set"  after  their  respective 
resignations.  The  former  was  Supreme  Court  reporter 
until  his  death  in  1884,  and  served  on  the  board  of 
regents  from  1859  to  1865.  Professor  Butler  spent  the 
remainder  of  his  years  in  travel  and  erudite  retirement, 
and  lived  to  an  advanced  age.  He  was  the  only  one 
of  "the  giant  race  before  the  flood"  who  came  within  my 
personal  ken.  To  restive  undergraduates  of  the  later 
time,  he  was  known  most  vividly  for  the  circumstantial 
plenitude  of  his  prayers  on  large  university  occasions. 


BUCOLICS  133 

Professor  Butler  possessed  strong  antiquarian  tastes  and 
had  a  prodigious  habit  of  hiving  quaint  and  curious 
tid-bits  of  forgotten  lore  which  he  unloaded  at  odd  times. 
He  used  frequently  to  come  booming  about  the  Shak- 
spere  alcove  in  pursuit  of  some  recondite  clue.  He  was 
a  small  man  but  his  voice  was  big,  and  sounded,  against 
the  library  hush,  preternaturally  so.  In  his  closing  years 
his  anniversary  became  a  day  of  pilgrimage  for  the 
devout,  and  they  were  many.  With  a  little  art,  he  might 
be  developed  into  a  mythus  of  the  former  age  in  its 
addiction  to  venerable  and  useless  learning. 

Professor  S.  P.  Lathrop  was  called  to  the  chair  of 
Natural  History  in  the  spring  of  1854,  in  order  that  the 
first  graduates  of  the  university  might  not  be  launched 
upon  life  without  a  knowledge  of  Chemistry,  and  gave 
the  first  university  courses  in  the  subject  with  appa- 
ratus borrowed  from  Beloit  College.  Professor  Lathrop 
died  in  December  of  the  same  year  and  the  question  of 
his  successor  was  not  settled  until  the  following  Sep- 
tember, the  board  of  regents  being  engaged  in  a  lively 
dispute  over  a  proposal  of  some  of  the  members  to  dis- 
band the  university  for  a  year  pending  a  reorganization. 
This  movement  failing,  Ezra  S.  Carr,  M.D.,  was  elected 
and  arrived  the  following  winter,  in  time  to  give  the 
instruction  in  Chemistry  to  the  class  of  1856.  John  P. 
Fuchs,  M.D.,  was  appointed  tutor  in  Modern  Languages 
in  1854  and  advanced  to  the  professorship  the  following 
year.  After  serving  one  year  he  was  succeeded  by 
Auguste  Kursteiner,  who  gave  way  two  years  later  to 
J.  C.  Pickard,  who  also  served  two  years,  after  which 
Professor  Fuchs  returned.  In  September,  1854,  Pro- 
fessor Daniel  Read  was  elected  Professor  of  Mental 
Philosophy,  Logic,  Rhetoric,  and  English  Literature  and 
began  his  duties  at  the  opening  of  the  next  academic 


134  WISCONSIN 

year.  With  the  exception  of  a  few  tutors  and  one  or 
two  temporary  appointments,  this  exhausts  the  personnel 
of  the  faculty  down  to  1867-68,  when  Professor  Read 
resigned  and  Professors  Butler,  Carr  and  Fuchs  were 
shaken  out  in  the  course  of  President  Chadbourne's 
energetic  rejuvenation  of  the  teaching  staff.  Of  the  men 
enumerated,  two :  Sterling  and  Conover,  were  graduates 
of  Princeton ;  two,  Butler  and  S.  P.  Lathrop,  of  Middle- 
bury  College  in  Vermont;  two,  Fuchs  and  Kursteiner, 
were  foreigners;  Read  was  a  graduate  of  Ohio  Univer- 
sity, Carr  of  a  medical  college  in  Vermont,  and  Pickard 
of  Bowdoin ;  both  Chancellor  Lathrop  and  his  successor 
were  Yale  men.  Conover  and  Butler  had  degrees  in 
divinity  but  seldom  preached;  Carr,  Fuchs,  and  S. 
P.  Lathrop  were  graduates  in  medicine.  Chancellor 
Lathrop  carried  more  weight  of  years  than  any  of  his 
staff,  being  sixty-eight  at  the  time  of  his  resignation. 
Barnard  was  about  twenty  years  younger.  At  the  same 
date,  Read  was  fifty-three,  Butler  forty-three,  Sterling 
forty-two,  Carr  thirty-nine,  Fuchs  thirty-five,  and  Con- 
over thirty-three. 

Of  the  character  of  the  instruction  it  is  possible  to 
gain  a  fairly  clear  idea.  The  announcements  of  the 
classical  department  (Professor  Butler)  indicate  that 
linguistic  subjects  were  already  on  the  defensive.  One 
passage  refers  to  "the  light  always  radiating  from  words 
upon  things."  "The  study,"  it  promises,  "will  be  an 
exercise  not  of  verbal  memory,  but  of  philosophical 
memory,  of  discrimination,  of  rendering  reasons,  and  of 
research  concerning  things  no  less  than  words."  The 
context  makes  it  obvious  that  "things"  of  antiquity 
were  in  mind ;  there  was  little  or  no  appeal  based  on  a 
fictitious  "application  to  life"  of  philological  studies. 
It  is  stated,  however,  that  "no  pains  will  be  spared  to 


BUCOLICS  135 

make  the  classical  languages  elucidate  our  own  ver- 
nacular." Professor  Read  and  the  chancellor  imparted 
instruction  to  the  more  advanced  classes  by  means  of 
lectures  and  of  classroom  discussions  based  upon  text- 
books. In  addition,  the  latter  met  the  college  every 
morning  in  chapel  and  performed  one  hour  of  teaching, 
daily,  in  the  classical  department.  Professor  Read  in- 
structed everybody  in  composition  and  declamation,  hold- 
ing his  exercise  at  three  in  the  afternoon. 

The  work  in  science  consisted  entirely  of  the  old- 
fashioned  "short  courses"  which  have  now  been  aban- 
doned. Expositions  by  the  professor,  with  illustrative 
experiments,  were  noted  down  and  memorized  by  the 
student.  In  Professor  Carr's  courses  the  recitation  of 
the  student  consisted  of  a  lecture  "on  the  same  subject 
and  after  the  manner  of  the  Professor."  Besides 
written  examinations,  there  was  held,  at  the  end  of  each 
term,  a  series  of  orals  open  to  the  public,  at  which  the 
student  had  an  opportunity  to  display  his  attainments. 
On  one  of  these  occasions,  a  local  newspaper,  in  its  char- 
acter of  preserving  the  public  health,  was  gratified  to 
record  the  presence  of  the  entire  faculty,  while  deplor- 
ing that,  at  times,  some  of  them  were  prone  to  neglect 
the  attendance  on  these  exercises.  Professor  Carr's 
method  of  instruction  appears  to  have  borne  direct  fruit, 
for  another  reporter  was  amused  by  the  "solemn  and 
professorlike"  demeanor  of  his  students  while  present- 
ing their  subjects.  There  was,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  little 
for  the  student  to  do  save  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  the 
professor  and  of  his  textbooks.  There  was  no  labora- 
tory practice.  The  "one  small  room  for  apparatus, 
chemicals,  etc.,"  was,  "much  of  the  time,  occupied  by 
Dr.  Carr  in  his  preparations  for  the  various  experiments 
performed  before  the  class."     The  other  departments 


136  WISCONSIN 

were  even  more  bare  of  material  facilities.  An  invoice 
of  1863  shows  that  the  "philosophical  apparatus"  up 
to  that  time  accumulated  by  Professor  Sterling  had  cost 
about  a  thousand  dollars.  The  most  considerable  items 
of  expenditure  had  been  for  a  microscope,  an  "electrical 
plate  machine,"  an  "Atwood's  machine,"  an  air-pump, 
a  surveyor's  transit  and  compass,  a  terrestrial,  and  a 
celestial  globe.  There  was  also  a  Natural  History  cabi- 
net in  charge  of  Professor  Carr,  by  him  valued  at 
$15,000  and  declared  to  be,  with  the  exception  of  that 
of  the  University  of  Michigan,  the  most  valuable  col- 
lection in  the  Northwest.  The  beginnings  of  this  col- 
lection dated  back  to  -the  first  meeting  of  the  board  of 
regents  when  Horace  A.  Tenney  of  Madison,  who  gave 
his  services  gratuitously,  had  been  authorized  to  incur  a 
limited  expense  for  the  collection  of  specimens.  His 
modest  accumulations  had  been  greatly  augmented  in 
1856,  when  the  regents  recklessly  appropriated  $1,200 
for  the  purchase  of  the  private  cabinet  of  Dr.  Carr. 
During  the  same  year,  the  university  received  from  ex- 
Governor  Farwell  "a  collection  in  Natural  History,  com- 
prising the  fauna  of  Wisconsin  and  the  Northwest,  and 
enriched  by  specimens  from  other  portions  of  this  Con- 
tinent and  from  the  Old  World."  Later  references  to 
the  dusty  minerals  and  "mangy  animals"  of  this  col- 
lection are  less  deferential  in  tone. 

The  other  movables  of  the  university  at  the  time  of 
the  above-mentioned  inventory  represented  an  outlay  of 
about  two  thousand  dollars  and  included  three  hot-air 
furnaces,  some  sixty-five  stoves,  sixty-six  school  desks, 
about  three  hundred  chairs,  thirty-five  settees,  five  lec- 
ture desks,  twenty-odd  tables,  one  melodeon,  an  assort- 
ment of  pails,  washtubs,  shovels,  saws,  scythes,  axes,  and 
crowbars,  a  couple  of  wheelbarrows,  one  of  which  was 


BUCOLICS  137 

in  "bad  condition,"  and  a  two  dollar  clock,  apparently 
in  running  order.  The  library  of  the  university  was,  in 
1866,  "estimated  in  the  absence  of  any  catalogue,  at 
2,600  volumes"  and  had  cost  $2,110.  A  by-law  of  the 
regents  provided  that  a  student  might  be  paid  an  amount 
not  exceeding  that  of  his  fees  to  serve  as  an  attendant 
and  that  he  should  keep  the  library  "open  at  least  one 
hour  each  day." 

With  such  meager  helps  to  imagination  did  the 
"hungry"  of  the  fifties  and  sixties  storm  the  frontiers 
of  science  and  teach  the  woods  to  resound  the  comely 
Amaryllis.  For  his  outdoor  surroundings,  I  must  refer 
the  reader  to  a  previous  chapter,  or,  if  given  to  fancy 
and  familiar  with  the  spot,  he  may  unbuild  all  but  two 
or  three  of  the  structures  that  "hide  the  green  hill"  and 
return  them  to  the  local  quarries,  sweep  away  all  the 
neighboring  houses  of  the  town  and  convert  the  spaces 
to  oak-openings  and  hazel  copses,  shrink  the  broad  elms 
to  saplings,  turn  the  bronze  Lincoln  to  life  and  send 
him  to  the  debating  circuit  in  Illinois  or  to  the  White 
House  according  to  the  period  he  fancies.  He  must  leave 
standing  Professor  Head's  stone  house  on  Observatory 
Hill  and  restore  the  old  red  brick  boarding  house  or 
"Students'  Club"  at  the  southwestern  foot  of  Univer- 
sity Hill ;  let  him  turn  loose,  in  the  valley  between  the 
two,  Professor  Bead's  browsing  cow,  give  to  the  air  the 
crowing  of  Professor  Conover's  blooded  rooster  and  stack 
the  spaces  back  of  North  and  South  Halls  with  about  a 
thousand  dollars'  worth  of  wood  at  three  dollars  a  cord, 
and  then,  if  by  these  genial  exertions  he  shall  have  trans- 
formed himself,  for  the  nonce,  into  a  virtuous  student 
of  those  bucolic  days,  and  if  the  college  bell  is  not  ring- 
ing him  to  early  chapel  or  to  class,  or  to  meals,  or  to 
study,  or  to  bed,  let  him  take  his  well-conned  Virgil  and 


138  WISCONSIN 

let  him  wander  as  he  lists  in  the  presence  of  Nature  and, 
with  this  instructor  in  hand,  learn  "to  live  beneath  her 
more  habitual  sway." 

Pallas  quas  condidit  arces 
Ipsa  colat:  nobis  placeant  ante  omnia  sUvae — 

One  readily  sees  why  the  early  advertisements  of  the 
university  never  neglect  to  mention  the  beauty  of  its 
natural  surroundings  and  the  well-known  healthfulness 
of  its  climate. 

Idealization  of  the  past  is — at  least  used  to  be — an 
amiable  weakness  of  human  nature ;  but  we  need  not  let 
it  carry  us  so  far  as  to  suppose  that  the  student  of  any 
time  was  always  at  his  book.  They  had  their  extra- 
curricular "activities"  in  the  days  of  the  chancellors, 
though  most  of  these  were  taken  less  seriously  than  the 
modern  student  takes  his, — exhausting  his  sense  of 
humor,  perhaps,  upon  his  regular  work.  There  is  fair 
evidence  that  most  of  those  tests  of  prowess  were  in  some 
use  amongst  them  which  have  been  practiced  since  time 
immemorial  by  rustic  Anglo-Saxon  youth:  foot-racing, 
leaping,  boxing,  wrestling,  at  various  holds  and  at  rough- 
and-tumble,  turning  of  handsprings,  swimming,  various 
antecedents  of  the  present  weight  events,  and  such  old 
games  as  prisoner's  base  and  duck-on-the-rock.  Then 
there  were  indoor  exercises  with  chairs,  broom-handles, 
and  other  domestic  properties,  homely  feats  and  tricks 
which  anyone  with  a  rustic  upbringing  will  easily  call 
to  mind  and  which  would  require  demonstrations  to  be 
made  clear  to  others.  Boating  seems  to  have  received  an 
impetus  from  the  feminine  invasion  in  the  sixties. 
Exactly  when  quoits  came  in,  I  am  not  certain;  it  was 
a  senior  pastime  in  1870 ;  that  it  had  some  tradition  by 
that  time  may  be  inferred  from  scornful  references  to 


BUCOLICS  139 

the  rival  seductions  of  croquet.  It  is  quite  plain  that  the 
latter  could  not  have  belonged  to  the  Saturnian  age. 
There  was  some  organized  play  at  a  game  resembling 
cricket,  in  the  fifties.  "A  match  at  wicket,  between  the 
Olympic  and  the  Mendota  Wicket  Clubs"  took  place  in 
the  spring  of  1858,  featured  (as  a  modern  reporter  would 
say)  by  ''the  excellent  bowling  of  Messrs.  C.  Shackle- 
ford  and  S.  W.  Botkin,  and  the  knocking  of  H.  Vilas." 
The  game  was  apparently  something  of  a  novelty  and 
was  commended  as  being  "just  as  pleasant  and  far  less 
dangerous  than  the  old  standby  of  college  students,  foot- 
ball." 

Eeminiscent  alumni  attribute  to  this  period  its  due 
share  of  those  boorish  pranks,  ebullient  from  youthful 
gayety  or  malice,  which  formerly  flourished  in  all  small 
colleges ;  but  practical  jokes  are  amusing  chiefly  to  their 
perpetrators,  and,  their  wit  being  at  best  largely  a 
delusion  of  animal  spirits,  the  fun  in  these  has  long  since 
effervesced.  Doubtless  the  absence  of  a  list  of  them  from 
this  record  will  not  be  sorely  felt.  We  have  abundant 
evidence,  at  any  rate,  that  whatever  the  arduousness  of 
their  tasks  and  the  privations  of  their  lives,  the  college 
men  of  early  days  were  not  prematurely  old.  Two  or 
three  years  ago,  a  gaunt  alumnus  of  the  class  of  '60, 
piqued  by  the  modern  ululations  of  the  annual  Alumni 
Dinner,  got  up  and  told  us  in  a  reverberant  voice,  now 
silent,  that  although  they  had  no  formal  yell  when  he 
was  in  college,  yet  they  could  and  did  make  a  noise. 
"We  yelled  when  we  left  for  the  war,  and  we  yelled 
all  through  the  war.  and  we  yelled  when  we  came  back 
from  the  war,  and  we  could  yell  in  those  days,  I  can 
tell  you,  we  could  yell,"  he  shouted  to  us,  and,  as  he  put 
all  he  could  summon  back  of  the  early  "Sixties"  into  the 
last  syllable,  we  thoroughly  believed  him.    Nevertheless, 


140  WISCONSIN 

the  college  student  of  the  early  days  was  primarily  a  man 
of  books,  pretty  definitely  set  off  and  asylumed  from 
"the  noise  and  peoples'  troublous  cries"  that  annoy  the 
town.  Just  as  the  college  professor  was  only  beginning 
to  slip  out  of  the  clerical  mind  and  habit,  and  little 
aspired  to  be  taken  for  "a  man  of  the  world,"  so  the 
student  retained  something  of  the  scholastic  about  him 
and  moved  among  his  fellow-beings  faithful  to  the  classic 
business  of  his  role. 

It  was  well  for  Chancellor  Lathrop  that  he  was  sus- 
tained by  an  inward  vision ;  for  the  material  institution 
over  which  he  held  sway  was  poor  enough.  Its  critics 
were  quite  within  the  facts  when  they  said  that  it  was 
merely  "a  classical  college  and  academy,"  and  were 
guilty  only  of  exaggeration  when  they  accused  it  of  being 
no  more  than  "a  High  School  for  the  village  of  Madi- 
son." They  lacked  prophetic  vision,  to  be  sure,  and  they 
had  not  the  philosophy  to  realize  that  everything  must 
have  a  beginning.  Even  as  a  beginning,  however,  it  was 
sufficiently  discouraging.  Never,  in  Lathrop 's  day,  did 
the  university  compare  favorably  in  the  number  of  its 
regular  students  nor  in  classical  prestige,  be  it  said,  with 
the  neighboring  denominational  college  at  Beloit.  The 
chancellor  had  been  on  duty  five  years  when  the  first 
diploma  was  conferred.  The  classical  college  consisted, 
then,  of  the  two  seniors,  one  junior  who  did  not  come  up 
the  following  year,  nine  sophomores  and  nine  freshmen. 
There  were,  in  addition,  twenty  irregular  students  "on 
select  portions  of  the  course,"  and  there  were  fifteen 
pupils  in  the  preparatory  department,  forty-one  in  all. 
The  university  reopened  in  July  with  ninety-one  stu- 
dents, but  only  sixteen  of  these  were  in  the  regular  col- 
lege classes ;  there  were  no  graduates  and  there  were  but 
three  freshmen.    By  1856-57  things  had  begun  to  look 


BUCOLICS  141 

better.  There  were,  this  year,  one  hundred  and  seventy- 
four  registrants  of  whom  forty-three  were  in  the  regular 
course,  all  but  eight  of  them  in  the  two  lower  classes. 
Of  the  entire  number  sixty-two  were  from  Madison, 
eighty-two  from  other  portions  of  Wisconsin  and  thirty 
from  other  states  and  territories.  The  chancellor,  ever 
wistful  for  signs  of  hope,  was  encouraged  to  report  that 
"the  Institution,  as  to  patronage  as  well  as  resources" 
might  "now  be  regarded  as  established  on  a  secure 
basis."  But  that  very  winter  began  the  determined 
action  in  the  legislature  which  forced  the  reorganization 
already  described  and  a  new  chancellor  delivered  their 
diplomas  to  the  eight  graduates  of  1859,  considerably  the 
largest  class  up  to  that  time.  During  ten  years  of  service 
Chancellor  Lathrop  had  conferred  but  fourteen  bacca- 
laureate degrees. 

But  it  is  not  to  enhance  the  pathos  which  attaches  to 
the  memory  of  the  first  chancellor  that  I  dwell  upon 
these  insignificant  details.  In  our  attempts  to  realize 
what  the  spirit  of  those  early  days  was  like,  probably  we 
are  not  wrong  in  thinking  with  considerable  attentiveness 
of  the  smallness  of  everything,  especially  of  the  small- 
ness  of  the  student  body.  In  this  day  of  thousands  all 
going  their  several  ways  and  doing  their  hundreds  of 
different  things  it  is  not  easy  for  us  to  imagine  the  in- 
timacy and  concentration  of  the  college  relationships  of 
that  time.  Between  teachers  and  students  there  is  a 
certain  gulf  fixed,  always,  which  can  be  bridged,  but 
seldom  entirely  closed;  differences  in  age,  in  experience, 
and  in  responsibility  make  this  inevitable.  This  was 
hardly  less  true,  apparently  it  was  more  true,  notwith- 
standing the  small  numbers,  in  the  elder  day  than  it  is 
now.  But  between  students  it  was  different.  The  inten- 
sity of  the  class  feeling  and  of  personal  feeling  as  well, 


142  WISCONSIN 

among  some  of  those  older  groups  of  hardly  half  a  dozen 
men  sometimes  startles  us,  and  we  have  to  pause  and 
reflect  that  they  whittled  the  same  old  benches  together 
during  "four  long  years"  and  sometimes  longer,  for 
many  of  them  were  "preps"  together,  and  that  together 
they  hewed  their  way  through  the  same  tough  passages 
of  Xenophon  and  Juvenal  and  Calculus,  before  we  can  in 
the  least  understand  them.  And  sometimes,  if  we  are 
at  all  given  to  reflection  and  not  idolatrously  in  love 
with  ourselves  and  our  own  times,  it  may  occur  to  us 
that,  much  as  we  have  the  advantage  of  them  in  the 
expansiveness  and  the  variety  of  our  tasks  and  our 
social  relations,  perhaps  we  have  missed  something,  too, 
in  missing  the  concentration  and  definiteness  and  even 
the  poverty  of  material  appliances  which  were  theirs. 

We  have  to  know,  also,  if  we  want  to  understand  them, 
that  they  were  something  of  an  aristocracy  in  their  way ; 
a  way  that  was  chiefly  unrelated  to  such  personal  idio- 
syncracies  as  the  patches  on  one's  trousers  or  the  manner 
of  securing  one's  meals ;  though,  it  must  be  admitted,  the 
top-hat  seems  to  have  been  a  totem  of  high  significance. 
So  far  as  there  was  an  aristocracy  it  was  largely  an 
aristocracy  of  scholarship ;  for  the  students  of  the  regu- 
lar classes  always  formed  a  sort  of  inner  circle  even 
within  the  small  college  of  that  time,  which  had  certain 
rights  and  hereditaments.  To  this  there  was  added  a 
clean-cut  hierarchy  of  the  classes  which  is  but  faintly 
reproduced  in  modern  college  society.  A  senior  of  the 
classical  course  who  burgeoned  forth  in  a  "plug"  hat 
and  called  on  the  village  belles,  went  to  class  to  the  chan- 
cellor, sat  upon  the  polity  of  states,  surveyed  the  History 
of  Civilization,  accumulated  Christian  Evidences,  pre- 
cipitated chlorides,  publicly,  "after  the  manner  of  the 
Professor,"  and,  "smiling  over  the  verdant  past,"  coolly 


BUCOLICS  143 

took  his  pick  of  the  dormitory  rooms,  was  a  person  worth 
being  in  the  days  of  the  chancellors.  All  this  was  quite 
as  unlike  the  scholastic  democracy  and  the  social  selec- 
tiveness  of  our  time  as  any  other  of  their  characteristics ; 
but  when  we  once  understand  it  we  can  understand  a 
great  deal  better  such  phenomena  as  their  passionate 
bigotry  a  little  later  against  the  establishment  of  a 
"normal  course"  "on  the  ground  of  its  introducing 
females  into  tlie  college,"  with,  as  they  feared,  a  con- 
sequent lowering  of  its  intellectual  tone.  When  we,  in 
our  more  enlightened  day,  think  we  have  quashed  this 
objection  by  pointing  to  the  relative  excellence  of  female 
scholarship,  we  totally  miss  their  point.  It  was  their 
own  intellectual  tone  that  they  were  worrying  about,  the 
intellectual  tone  of  a  mono-sexual  group.  Perhaps  they 
were  wrong;  but  they  would  probably  maintain  to  this 
day  that  they  were  right,  were  they  not,  most  of  them, 
dead.  Therein  lies  a  thundering  argument  which  will  go 
far,  in  time,  to  silence  their  whole  generation. 


VI 

WAR  TIMES 

The  development  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  as 
of  all  similar  institutions,  was  much  modified  by  the 
Civil  War.  The  character  of  the  clientele,  the  spirit  of 
its  students  and  officers,  and  its  public,  its  finances,  man- 
agement, activities,  all  reflected  the  influence  of  those 
stirring  events  which  so  profoundly  affected  the  whole 
country.  In  its  tenacious  yet  mobile  grip  on  existence 
during  the  four  great  years,  in  the  spirit  of  devotion  and 
self-sacrifice  which  "looked  on  tempests  and  was  never 
shaken,"  and  finally,  in  its  prompt  reconstruction  on 
broader  lines  and  its  advance  toward  a  solid  success  as 
soon  as  the  war  was  over,  it  mirrored,  within  a  limited 
sphere,  with  great  intensity,  the  movements  of  the  state 
and  of  the  nation  at  large. 

First  and  most  obvious  of  the  effects  of  the  war,  and 
also  the  most  picturesque,  was  the  decimation  of  the 
college  classes  by  the  call  to  arms.  The  state  of  Wis- 
consin sent  to  the  front,  in  the  course  of  the  four  years, 
upwards  of  ninety  thousand  men  or  about  one  in  five  of 
the  male  population.  Of  these  more  than  three- 
quarters, — about  seventy  thousand,  were  mobilized  and 
drilled  at  Camp  Eandall,  half  a  mile  to  the  west,  and  in 
full  view,  of  the  campus  on  the  hill.  Thus  the  uni- 
versity was  in  full  focus  of  the  military  excitement  of 
the  period. 

The  city  of  Madison  had  the  distinction  of  contribut- 

144 


WAR  TIMES  145 

ing  two  companies  to  the  regiment  of  ninety-day  men 
which  the  state  sent  in  response  to  the  first  call.  A 
Madison  Company  had  been  the  first  to  answer  the  call 
for  volunteers.  Early  in  January,  1861,  the  Madison 
Guards  tendered  their  services  to  the  governor  of  the 
state,  "in  case  those  services  might  be  required  for  the 
preservation  of  the  American  Union."  Sumter  fell  on 
the  fourteenth  of  April.  Two  days  later  the  President 's 
call  for  volunteers  reached  Governor  Randall.  Captain 
Bryant's  company  was  notified  on  this  day  that  the 
tender  of  three  months  before  had  been  accepted  and 
the  enrollment  of  the  men  began  on  the  day  following. 
The  same  day,  the  seventeenth,  another  Madison  Com- 
pany, the  Governor's  Guards,  tendered  its  services,  which 
were  accepted  the  eighteenth.  A  few  university  students 
were  already  members  of  these  companies;  others  im- 
mediately enlisted,  and  still  others  joined  companies 
elsewhere.  A  large  share  of  the  universify  volunteers 
entered  the  Governor's  Guards.  As  happens  in  such 
cases,  the  university  gave  of  her  best  and  brightest.  A 
report  of  the  faculty  records  the  names  of  nineteen 
students  who  responded  to  the  first  call.  Thirteen  of 
them  were  members  of  the  four  regular  college  classes. 
Two  of  the  nine  seniors  enlisted  at  once  and  by  1863, 
five  of  this  class  were  with  the  Union  Army.  The  junior 
class  was  virtually  wiped  out,  five  of  its  eight  members 
enlisting  at  the  first  call;  all  but  one  had  entered  the 
army  by  1863.  The  sophomore  class  of  eleven  had 
shrunk  to  six  at  graduation,  of  whom  two  were  by  that 
time  with  the  army.  But  the  progressive  effect  of  the 
war  is  best  exemplified  by  the  class  of  1864,  the  freshmen 
of  1861.  At  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  this  class  numbered 
forty-nine,  the  strongest  freshman  class  the  university 
had  yet  known.    Five  volunteered  at  the  first  call ;  one 


146  WISCONSIN 

of  these,  Pliny  Norcross,  according  to  Professor  Butler, 
being  the  "first  student  to  enlist."  After  recording  this 
fact,  Professor  Butler  continues,  "The  lead  of  Norcross 
was  followed  by  so  many  sons  of  Mars  that  the  largest 
and  best  Greek  class  I  ever  had  was  sadly  thinned  out. 
When  this  stampede  took  place,  we  were  engaged  in 
Xenophon's  Memorabilia.  My  own  pocket  copy,  Triib- 
ner's  edition,  I  gave  to  James  M.  Bull,  one  of  my  most 
zealous  pupils.  It  was  his  vade  me  cum  throughout  the 
war."  The  class  of  '64  shrank  to  twenty-one  the  second 
year  and  to  seven  the  third.  James  L.  High,  a  member 
of  the  class,  estimated  that  seventeen  of  the  class  entered 
the  service  during  the  first  year  of  the  war,  while  of  the 
twenty-one  who  reached  the  sophomore  year,  twelve  en- 
listed before  the  end  of  the  war.  Finally,  the  Regents' 
Eeport  of  1864  has  this  news  of  the  remnant:  "The 
members  of  the  Senior  class  (with  one  exception)  having 
left  the  State,  along  with  many  other  students  of  the 
University,  as  volunteers  in  the  40th  Regiment  of  Wis- 
consin Infantry  (one  hundred-day  men)  no  commence- 
ment was  held."  Five  of  the  class,  all  that  remained  of 
the  forty-nine  of  three  years  before,  were  voted  their 
degrees,  and  of  these,  as  we  see,  all  but  one  had  left  for 
the  front  without  completing  the  last  year.  The  statis- 
tics amply  substantiate  the  statement  made  by  the 
faculty  in  1865:  "Every  call,  from  the  very  first,  which 
has  been  made  by  the  Government  for  men  has  taken 
from  us  a  portion  of  our  best  students,  and  especially 
reduced  our  advanced  classes."  In  addition  to  those 
who  were  drafted  directly  into  the  army,  many  were 
detained  at  home  to  fill  the  places  of  older  members  of 
the  family  who  had  gone  into  military  service.  As  a 
result  of  these  depletions,  the  enrollment  in  the  col- 
legiate department,  which  had  approximated  eighty  in 


WAR  TIMES  147 

1860-61,  fell  off  about  twenty  the  next  year,  sank  to 
near  forty  in  1862-63,  and  fluctuated  in  that  neighbor- 
hood until  after  the  war. 

"With  the  war  uppermost  in  all  minds  and  with  the 
chief  training  camp  of  the  state  so  close  at  hand,  it  was 
natural  that  the  university  should  become,  in  some 
degree,  a  school  for  soldiers.  In  the  autumn  of  1861,  the 
students  organized  a  company  among  themselves  and 
were  granted  arms  by  the  adjutant-general  of  the  state. 
They  drilled  daily  during  two-thirds  of  the  year,  under 
the  direction  of  E.  G.  Miller,  one  of  the  volunteers  of 
the  preceding  spring,  who  had  returned  after  serving 
out  his  time.  The  faculty  displayed  a  keen  interest  in 
the  military  aspirations  of  the  students  and  made  numer- 
ous appeals  for  the  formation  of  a  military  department ; 
but  nothing  was  accomplished  in  this  direction.  Never- 
theless, the  students  continued  their  military  activity 
under  the  official  style  of  "University  Guards,"  which 
was  soon  changed  in  humorous  student  parlance  to 
"University  Myrmidons."  Nor  did  these  fierce  young 
warriors  relax  their  preparations  for  combat  when,  in  the 
spring  of  1862,  Miller  resigned  command  of  the  battalion 
to  recruit  his  company  for  the  20th  Infantry.  The 
mental  attitude  of  the  students  is  doubtless  well  illus- 
trated by  Miller's  reply  when  exhorted  to  remain  and 
continue  his  studies.  "When  they  ask  me  fifty  years 
hence  where  I  was  during  the  rebellion,  it  won't  sound 
just  right  to  say  'grinding  Latin  and  Greek  at  No.  11, 
North  College.'" 

The  faculty,  in  the  reports,  speak  admiringly  of  the 
proficiency  of  the  students  in  drill  and  note  its  bene- 
ficial effect  upon  their  physical  condition  and  the  for- 
tunate reflex  of  the  military  sense  of  duty  upon  their 
application  to  study.    The  knowledge  of  military  matters 


148  WISCONSIN 

acquired  in  this  manner  enabled  a  large  proportion  of 
those  who  entered  the  army  to  commence  as  officers. 
James  L.  High,  writing  twelve  years  after  the  close  of 
the  war,  estimated  the  number  of  students  who  entered 
the  army  at  rather  over  than  under  one  hundred,  about 
one  in  three  of  the  total  number  enrolled  during  the 
period.  Of  the  entire  number  of  university  men,  stu- 
dents and  alumni,  engaged  in  the  war,  he  estimated  that 
"nearly  if  not  quite  one-half"  were  officers.  Of  those 
who  had  received  degrees  from  the  university,  it  may  be 
noted  in  passing,  whether  calculated  at  the  beginning  or 
at  the  close  of  the  war,  just  one-half  entered  the  army. 
In  estimating  the  achievements  of  university  men  in  the 
war,  it  should  be  remembered  that  nearly  all  were  men 
under  thirty,  most  of  them  much  under  thirty  years  of 
age.  The  oldest  graduate  of  the  institution  had  been 
out  less  than  ten  years  when  the  war  began.  When  this 
is  taken  into  account,  it  is  not  surprising  that  university 
men  were  most  conspicuous,  as  company  officers.  High 
was  able  to  recall  thirteen  who  served  as  captain,  besides 
several  who  were  promoted  from  that  to  a  higher  rank. 
Two  classes,  '61  and  '64,  each  contributed  five  captains. 
They  were,  from  the  class  of  '61,  Hall  of  the  5th,  Gillet 
of  the  20th,  Henry  Vilas  of  the  23rd,  Ball  of  the  31st, 
and  Leahy  of  the  50th,  all  infantry  regiments.  Of  the 
class  of  '64,  Bradley  commanded  a  colored  company, 
Norcross  was  a  captain  in  the  13th,  Miller  and  Stone  in 
the  20th,  and  Spooner  in  the  50th  Infantry.  The  others 
were  Kemick,  '62,  of  the  11th,  S.  W.  Botkin,  '57,  of 
the  23rd,  and  Tredway,  '63,  captain  and  quartermaster. 
To  these  I  am  able  to  add,  Marsh,    '59,  of  the  29th 

Wis. ,  and  H.  C.  Bradford,  '59,  of  Virginia,  who  was 

a  captain  on  the  confederate  side, — Washington  Battery, 
C.  S.  Artillery. 


WAR  TIMES  149 

Eight  field  officers  are  recorded.  "William  F.  Vilas, 
'58,  was  successively  captain,  major,  and  lieutenant- 
colonel  of  the  23rd  Infantry.  Hubbell,  '58,  was  a  major 
of  the  1st  Artillery.  Fallows,  "59,  entered  as  chaplain 
of  the  32nd,  and  was  subsequently  lieutenant-colonel  of 
the  40th,  and  colonel  of  the  49th  Infantry.  Bull,  '64, 
a  private  of  the  1st  (ninety-day)  regiment,  became  a 
lieutenant  in  the  11th,  captain  in  the  23rd  and  lieuten- 
ant-colonel of  the  5th  Regiment.  Of  no  special  class  were 
Dawes,  colonel  of  the  6th  Infantry,  a  division  of  the 
famous  "Iron  Brigade";  Larkin,  major  of  the  38th; 
Warner,  colonel  of  the  36th ;  and,  finally,  ' '  the  gallant 
La  Grange"  who,  entering  the  service  as  captain  of  the 
4th  Infantry,  was  promoted  major  and  colonel  of  the 
1st  Cavalry,  and  "achieved  a  reputation  as  a  daring 
and  skillful  cavalry  officer  second  to  that  of  no  officer  of 
like  rank  in  the  army."  Fallows  and  La  Grange  were 
brevetted  brigadiers  for  meritorious  service. 

If  we  consider  either  the  number  or  the  quality  of  the 
men  whom  the  university  sent  into  the  field,  the  record 
is  a  striking  one.  Of  those  who  had  received  degrees 
when  the  enlistments  began  one-half  were  in  military 
service  before  the  expiration  of  a  year.  As  the  war 
went  on,  the  youngsters  came  forward,  year  by  year,  to 
answer  the  increasing  calls  for  men.  And  when  the  war 
was  over,  they  returned  to  civil  life,  ripened  beyond  their 
years  by  experience  and  responsibility,  prepared  to  play 
a  significant  part  in  the  upbuilding  of  the  state  and  of 
their  Alma  Mater. 

Of  course  some  did  not  return.  No  memorial  has  been 
raised  to  them  and  recollection  of  them  has  grown  ob- 
scure with  the  passing  of  their  generation.  Since  many 
of  them  left  college  before  graduation  they  lack  even  the 
bare  notice  of  the  Alumni  Directory.    Yet  it  is  not  fitting 


150  WISCONSIN 

that  their  names  should  lie  perdu  in  musty  newspaper 
files.  The  roll  was  called  and  their  personalities  were 
tenderly  sketched  by  a  contemporary  in  words  which 
we  can  do  no  better  than  transcribe.  On  the  19th  of 
June,  1877,  James  L.  High,  of  the  class  of  '64,  addressed 
the  Alumni  Association  on  "The  University  and  the 
War."  Of  those  who  gave  up  their  lives  he  spoke  as 
follows : 

"I  see  them  in  the  flower  of  their  youth,  marching 
away  to  the  front,  keeping  time  to  the  strange  music  of 
war  which  was  for  them  at  once  an  inspiration  and  a 
requiem :  Ashmore,  first  of  all  our  dead  heroes,  of  South- 
ern blood  and  Southern  chivalry  in  its  best  sense,  but 
whose  love  for  the  flag  prevailed  over  all ;  Comins  who 
fell  on  the  Potomac,  a  knightly  soldier,  tried  and  true, 
and  brave  with  the  valor  of  the  old  Puritan  blood  in  his 
veins;  Almon  Smith,  genial,  witty,  who  died  that  hard- 
est of  deaths  to  a  soldier — a  lingering  death  in  hospital ; 
Sutton,  dying  also  in  hospital,  whose  quiet  demeanor 
and  hesitating  speech,  as  we  knew  him  in  college,  gave 
little  promise  of  the  heroic  spirit  within  him;  Curtiss, 
who  fell  at  South  Mountain,  tender  as  a  woman,  but 
lion-hearted  as  any  crusader  of  old;  Hungerford,  who 
charged  with  his  company  up  the  heights  at  Fredericks- 
burg, and  fell  only  when  his  regiment  had  stormed  the 
very  crest ;  Isham,  who  did  his  duty  soldierly,  and  came 
home  with  the  hand  of  death  upon  him,  lingering  a  few 
weeks,  until  he,  too,  received  his  final  discharge ;  Stark- 
weather, who  wasted  away  in  camp  until,  when  the  end 
was  near,  we  sent  him  home,  only  to  die  on  the  bosom  of 
the  Father  of  Waters  before  his  longing  eyes  could  catch 
a  glimpse  of  the  promised  land;  and,  tenderest  of  all, 
Henry  Smith,  of  my  own  class,  whose  fair  young  life 
faded  out  on  that  terrible  march  of  General  Steele's 
division  through  Arkansas  in  1862,  a  chevalier  Bayard, 
stainless  and  true,  without  fear  and  without  reproach." 

Although  the  regular  classes  were  depleted  almost  to 
the  point  of  extinction,  the  faculty  labored  heroically  to 


WAR  TIMES  151 

provide  every  opportunity  for  study  which  had  existed 
in  time  of  peace.  With  very  few  exceptions  every  course 
in  the  curriculum  was  kept  in  operation.  It  was  wisely 
foreseen  by  both  faculty  and  regents  that,  as  soon  as  the 
war  should  be  ended,  there  would  be  a  new  set  toward 
higher  education  and  that  everything  would  depend 
upon  the  readiness  of  the  university  to  perform  its  ap- 
pointed work.  At  the  same  time,  since  it  was  impossible 
to  prevent  the  diminution  of  the  regular  classes,  it  be- 
came evident  that  a  different  clientele  must  be  found. 
The  most  obvious  sphere  of  usefulness  for  the  moment 
lay  in  the  preparation  of  teachers  for  the  common 
schools. 

The  university  was  at  its  lowest  ebb  during  the  first 
two  years  of  the  war.  Only  twelve  students  of  college 
grade  were  enrolled  in  the  classical  course  during  the 
winter  term  of  1862-63,  and  seventeen  in  the  new  scien- 
tific course.  Including  the  pupils  of  the  preparatory 
department  the  total  attendance  during  this  winter 
amounted  to  but  sixty-three  students.  Still  an  effort  was 
made  to  keep  the  entire  programme  alive,  and  advanced 
classes  were  run,  in  many  cases,  for  the  benefit  of  one 
or  two  students.  This  was  naturally  felt  to  be  an  ex- 
travagance. At  the  same  time  that  it  had  reduced  the 
university  to  this  pass,  the  draft  made  by  the  war  upon 
the  young  males  of  the  state  had  increased  the  oppor- 
tunities of  women  in  the  schools,  and  suddenly  opened  a 
larger  field  for  the  preparation  of  this  class  of  teachers. 
In  this  exigency,  the  university  authorities  determined 
to  put  in  effect  their  long  cherished  plan  for  a  normal 
department  which  should  be  equally  open  to  men  and 
women.  Charles  H.  Allen,  agent  of  the  board  of  regents 
of  normal  schools,  was  elected  professor  of  Normal 
Instruction  and  Anna  W.  Moody  was  appointed  pre- 


152  WISCONSIN 

ceptress.  South  Hall  was  set  aside  as  a  dormitory  and 
boarding  houses  for  women,  and  recitation  rooms  for  the 
use  of  this  department  were  fitted  up  in  one  of  the  wings 
of  University  Hall.  The  precautions  that  were  taken  to 
safeguard  the  social  welfare  of  the  women  are  indicated 
by  the  following  advertisement : 

"Ladies  desiring  board  will  be  received  into  the  family 
of  the  Professor,  and  it  will  be  the  aim  to  make  both  the 
privileges  and  the  restraints  as  homelike  as  possible.  A 
few  rooms  will  be  rented  in  the  building  to  ladies  desir- 
ing to  board  themselves;  they  will,  however,  be  under 
the  same  regulations  as  members  of  the  family. ' ' 

The  Normal  Department  opened  on  the  sixteenth  of 
March,  1863,  and  the  women  numbered  one  hun- 
dred and  nineteen  out  of  one  hundred  and  sixty-two 
enrolled  in  this  department,  and  in  1863-64  the  number 
of  women  registered  in  the  university  was  one  hundred 
and  eighty  out  of  a  total  enrollment  of  three  hundred 
sixty-one.  In  June,  1865,  six  "young  ladies"  had  con- 
ferred upon  them  the  Certificate  of  Graduation  in  the 
Normal  Department. 

The  course  of  study  designed  for  the  women  ran 
through  three  years  and  was  of  about  the  difficulty  of 
a  modern  high  school  course.  Candidates  for  admission 
were  examined  only  in  the  Outlines  of  Geography, 
Elements  of  English  Grammar  and  Arithmetic  to  Pro- 
portion. However,  students  in  this  department  were 
carried  through  higher  Algebra  and  Trigonometry,  and 
were  admitted  to  university  lectures  in  Science,  Philoso- 
phy, and  English  Literature.  One  year  of  German  was 
required,  for  which  Latin  or  French  might  be  substi- 
tuted. Within  a  couple  of  years  the  women  had  invaded 
the  other  departments  of  the  university ;  so  that,  in  1864, 


WAR  TIMES  153 

we  find  one  hundred  and  twenty  of  them  classified  as 
"irregular";  and  "the  following  year  there  were  fifty- 
four  in  the  preparatory  department  and  eighteen  in  so- 
called  "select  studies,"  against  sixty-six  in  the  regular 
normal  course. 

In  reporting  upon  the  Normal  Department  (1865)  the 
faculty  express  the  opinion  that  it  "has  made  the  Uni- 
versity a  more  useful  institution  during  the  past  three 
years,  than  otherwise  it  could  have  been."  But  they 
add:  "It  is  not,  however,  to  be  disguised  that  among 
former  students  of  the  University,  and  among  leading 
ones  now  in  the  institution,  there  has  been  a  strong  feel- 
ing of  opposition  to  the  Department,  mainly  on  the 
grou'nd  of  its  bringing  females  into  t~he  University."' 
Coeducation,  indeed,  had  slipped  in  as  a  war  measure 
and  was  the  source  of  considerable  irritation  after  the 
war  was  over.  As  the  men  straggled  back  from  the  field, 
they  found  the  women  in  possession,  and  not  having  been 
present  to  resist  the  earlier  stages  of  the  invasion  or  to 
become  accustomed  to  it,  they  were  at  first  disposed  to 
make  a  row.  The  year  1866  was  one  of  considerable 
turbulence  on  this  account.  The  discontent  of  the 
reactionaries  found  expression  in  a  characteristic  litera- 
ture which  was  none  too  gallant  toward  the  fair  invaders 
and  was  anything  but  delicate  in  its  allusions  to  the 
pusillanimous  males  who  gave  aid  and  comfort  to  the 
enemy.  There  had  been  from  the  beginning  some  at- 
tempt at  separation  of  the  sexes,  and  during  President 
Chadbourne's  period  of  control  (1867-70),  segregation 
was  vigorously  enforced.  After  his  departure,  the  op- 
position rapidly  broke  down,  both  in  student  sentiment 
and  in  administrative  practice.  But  I  shall  return  to 
this  subject  a  little  later. 

The  same  year  that  the  university  touched  its  lowest 


154  WISCONSIN 


"Stfo  Ulili  Kiln  (tf  mW  vi)  Li  tm  ii!<  ai.  itJ  M      |      Ik*  ui  f«  •(  tub  u  Iki  Cm  it  lit  I  ilm-u.    lid  It.  1 1. 

ANNUAL  EMETIC 
L.  11 N.  TARY  "SKIILE"  FOR  A.  B.  C.  DARI ANS 

SOISNTIFIO       STOCK'      F  A.  I?,  3vT , 

QUE  MILS  WEST  OF  THE  CAflTOt 
MADISON,   WISCONSIN",   JITSfc    27,   IKiifl. 


I  fl.  run... I  Blwi  <•  «f  ion  11-.1  ItfgtM 


&%     ^     ^>     ^     ^<g    -rf^: 


3®      3&      2a      *§>    -&a    £^a    a~4    ^ 


Student  Poster,  1866 


WAR  TIMES  155 

point  in  enrollment,  it  reached  the  bottom  with  respect 
to  its  financial  resources.  Following  the  financial  strin- 
gency of  1857  the  forfeiture  of  land  contracts  had  begun 
and  these  went  on  at  an  accelerated  pace  during  the 
earlier  years  of  the  war.  There  were  no  land  sales  to 
offset  these  losses,  so  that  by  1863,  the  university  had 
on  its  hands  over  forty  thousand  acres  of  forfeited  and 
unsold  lands.  The  actual  income  receipts  of  1862  showed 
that  the  productive  capital  of  the  university  had  shrunk 
to  the  sum  of  $199,810.  The  legislature  of  this  year  de- 
cided to  simplify  university  finances  by  paying  out  of 
the  capital  fund  the  indebtedness  which  had  been  in- 
curred in  the  erection  of  buildings,  thus  reducing  the 
fund  to  about  $106,000.  This  would  produce  an  annual 
income  of  a  trifle  over  seven  thousand  dollars,  from 
which  there  was  still  to  be  deducted  the  annual  state 
charge  of  nearly  a  thousand  dollars  for  the  care  of  the 
fund.  The  last  of  the  debt  was  paid  off  out  of  the 
university  fund  in  1864.  During  the  last  years  of  the 
war,  finances  began  to  pick  up  and  the  annual  sales  a 
little  more  than  offset  the  annual  forfeitures,  so  that, 
by  1866,  the  productive  fund  had  crept  up  to  about 
$160,000.  This  was  little  enough;  only  the  most  rigid 
economy  enabled  the  institution  to  continue  in  operation. 
At  the  time  of  the  reorganization,  the  annual  salaries  of 
the  faculty  had  been  set  at  fifteen  hundred  dollars  and 
the  university  share  of  the  chancellor's  salary  at  twenty- 
five  hundred.  During  Barnard's  year,  the  salary  budget, 
plus  the  mileage  and  per  diem  of  the  regents,  had 
amounted  to  a  little  over  twelve  thousand  dollars,  which 
was  nearly  twice  the  total  net  income  a  couple  of  years 
later.  This  salary  scale  had  been  maintained  for  only 
two  years ;  in  1860,  salaries  were  cut  back  to  a  thousand 
dollars.    In  the  autumn  of  1863,  with  bankruptcy  staring 


156  WISCONSIN 

them  in  the  face,  the  regents  shaved  the  salaries  of  the 
professors  another  hundred  dollars,  granting  to  each  his 
proportional  share  of  the  now  shrunken  student  fees. 
At  the  same  time  the  practice  of  paying  mileage  and  per 
diem  to  regents  was  temporarily  discontinued.  In  spite 
of  these  economies  the  regents  found  themselves,  in  the 
autumn  of  1865,  facing  a  deficit  of  eighteen  hundred 
dollars,  but  pointed  out  that  they  had  on  hand  nearly 
enough  wood  to  carry  them  through  the  ensuing  winter. 
As  a  further  measure  of  economy  the  use  of  furnaces 
was  discontinued  in  the  dormitories ;  stoves  were  set  up, 
and  students  were  required  to  provide  their  own  fuel. 
Student  relations  to  the  woodpile  back  of  North  Hall 
became,  for  a  time,  an  important  feature  of  university 
life. 

While  the  regents  were  exerting  themselves  to  over- 
come the  material  embarrassments  of  the  war  period, 
the  little  band  of  university  graduates  performed  their 
part  in  keeping  alive,  amidst  other  excitements,  the 
spirit  of  loyalty  to  their  tottering  Alma  Mater.  On 
the  evening  of  Commencement  Day,  1861,  an  Alumni 
Association  was  organized,  with  Charles  T.  Wakeley,  '54, 
as  its  first  president.  The  other  officers  were  J.  F.  Smith, 
vice-president,  J.  M.  Flower,  corresponding  secretary, 
William  F.  Vilas,  recording  secretary,  and  T.  D.  Coryell, 
treasurer.  The  following  Commencement  (1862)  there 
was  an  enthusiastic  symposium  of  alumni  sentiment. 
There  were  literary  exercises  at  which  an  oration  was 
pronounced  by  Charles  T.  Wakeley,  and  R.  W.  Hubbell 
read  a  poem  which  ranged  at  ease  from  the  creation  to 
the  military  exploits  of  the  current  year.  Commence- 
ment evening  there  was  a  bountiful  dinner  at  a  local 
hotel,  followed  by  toasts,  to  the  generous  number  of 
eighteen.    Some  of  the  "old  boys"  were  back  from  the 


WAR  TIMES  157 

front  and  there  were  letters  from  others  who  were  still 
in  camp.  National  and  collegiate  patriotism  vied  with 
each  other  in  extravagance.  "One  of  the  most  striking 
features  of  the  occasion  was  the  frequent  manifestation 
of  the  deep  and  warm  attachment"  for  ex-Chancellor 
Lathrop,  who  was  the  guest  of  honor,  having  returned 
to  deliver  the  annual  address  before  the  literary  societies 
on  the  preceding  evening.  This  was  the  first  of  a  series 
of  alumni  gatherings  which  preserved  much  the  same 
character  for  a  number  of  years  to  come.  The  custom 
of  appointing  annually  an  alumni  "orator"  and  "poet" 
was  continued  until  1892. 

But  it  was  upon  the  faculty,  and  especially  upon 
Professor  Sterling,  that  the  burden  of  keeping  the  uni- 
versity in  operation  through  these  desperate  years  fell 
with  most  hardship.  It  is  hard  to  see  how  the  institu- 
tion could  have  subsisted  had  it  not  been  saved  at  this 
time  from  the  necessity  of  providing  for  a  chancellor's 
salary.  The  duties  of  this  office  had  been  distributed 
among  the  members  of  the  faculty.  In  fact,  this  had 
been  the  situation  ever  since  the  incumbency  of  Barnard, 
who  had  not  "at  any  time  engaged  in  the  ordinary  duties 
of  instruction  or  internal  administration. ' '  The  work  of 
Normal  Instruction,  so  far  as  any  existed,  up  to  the  time 
of  the  appointment  of  Professor  Allen,  had  devolved 
upon  Professor  Read.  Professor  Butler  had  acted  as 
university  chaplain,  conducting  the  regular  chapel  exer- 
cises and  delivering  the  annual  baccalaureate  address. 
The  duties  of  administration  had  been  discharged  by 
Professor  Sterling,  "under  the  not  very  apt  designation 
of  Dean  of  the  Faculty."  After  some  pressure,  the 
regents,  in  1865,  changed  his  title  to  that  of  Vice  Chan- 
cellor. All  of  these  tasks  had  been  performed  by  the 
several  professors  without  extra  pay.    In  spite  of  "much 


158  WISCONSIN 

personal  embarrassment  from  inadequate  support,  aris- 
ing from  the  increased  rates  of  living,"  they  stuck  to 
their  posts.  To  some  of  them  the  university  salary  "af- 
forded but  little,  if  any,  over  half-support."  Yet  there 
was  no  complaining.  They  felt  it  "a  matter  of  duty  and 
professional  pride"  to  maintain  the  continuity  of  the  in- 
stitution, in  order  that  it  might  be  ready  to  make  the  most 
of  the  movement  toward  education  which  they  were  con- 
fident would  set  in,  the  moment  the  young  men  of  the 
North  laid  down  their  arms.  "We  are  to  bear  in  mind," 
they  stated  in  an  address  to  the  board  of  regents,  "that 
the  University  is  for  all  time,  and  it  is  not  to  be  ques- 
tioned that  the  State  will  sooner  or  later  furnish  the 
means  of  adequate  support." 


VII 
THE  NEW  ERA 

The  words  quoted  at  the  close  of  the  last  chapter  were 
written  by  Sterling  in  June,  1865.     The  better  time 
which  they  so  confidently  anticipated  was  close  at  hand. 
The  four  years'  struggle  was  over  and  the  men  of  the 
North  turned  exultantly  to  the  conquests  of  peace.     For 
some  years  a  sounder  public  spirit  had  prevailed  in  the 
official  life  of  the  state.    Referring  to  the  political  con- 
ditions by  which  the  institution  had  been  hampered, 
Sterling  expressed  the  hope  that  the  university  had  "in 
a  great  measure  passed  the  stage  of  its  early  embarrass- 
ment from  these  sources.' '    Fortunately,  now,  the  cause 
of  the  university  was  espoused  by  several  state  officers 
whose  attitude  undoubtedly  influenced  that  of  the  legis- 
lature.    Among  the  individual  leaders  who  should  be 
remembered  with  gratitude  were  James  T.  Lewis,  suc- 
cessively secretary  of  state  and  governor  between  1862 
and  1865 ;  Thomas  S.  Allen,  secretary  of  state,  1866-70, 
and  especially,  General  Lucius  Fairchild,  who  was  secre- 
tary of  state,  1864-65,  and  governor  from  1866  to  1872. 
It  should  be  noted  that  the  secretary  of  state  was  then, 
ex  officio,  a  member  of  the  board  of  regents.     At  an 
earlier   period,    this    relation    had    sometimes   been    of 
dubious  import  for  the  university;  but  the  friendly  in- 
terest which  these  men  were  led  to  take  in  its  welfare 
proved  of  great  advantage. 

Lewis  had  been  connected  with  the  university  at  a 
time  when  it  was  not  possible  for  the  state  to  lend  it 

159 


160  WISCONSIN 

any  financial  assistance.  At  the  end  ,of  his  governorship, 
however,  he  conferred  upon  the  university  a  testimonial 
of  his  regard,  its  first  pecuniary  gift  from  a  private 
source.  On  the  eighteenth  of  February,  1865,  he  de- 
posited with  the  treasurer,  a  United  States  bond  for  one 
hundred  dollars,  with  a  request  that  the  interest  thereon 
might  be  used  each  year  "in  procuring  a  suitable  silver 
or  gold  medal,  to  be  presented  to  the  student  whom  the 
professor  should  designate  as  having  made  the  greatest 
mental  and  moral  progress  during  the  year  preceding 
its  presentation."  The  sentimental  importance  of  the 
gift  is  not  to  be  measured  in  terms  of  its  munificence; 
the  donor  was  not  a  man  of  liberal  means.  As  the  sum 
was  not  considered  adequate  for  the  purpose,  he  added 
an  equal  amount,  and  the  whole  was  allowed  to  lie  at 
interest  until  it  had  increased  to  three  hundred  dollars, 
when  the  regents,  with  his  consent,  made  it  the  basis  of 
an  annual  prize  of  twenty  dollars  for  the  best  commence- 
ment essay.  The  "Lewis  prize,"  first  awarded  in  1875, 
came  to  be,  for  a  number  of  years,  the  most  coveted 
university  honor. 

General  Fairchild  was  one  of  the  chief  military  heroes 
of  the  state.  At  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  he  had  been 
the  first  member  of  the  Governor's  Guards  to  enlist,  and 
entered  the  army  as  a  captain  in  the  First  Regiment, 
Wisconsin  volunteers,  sixty-day  men.  Commissioned 
captain  in  the  regular  army,  he  was  granted  leave  of 
absence  to  serve  with  the  volunteers  of  his  state  and  was 
appointed  lieutenant-colonel  of  the  Second  Regiment, 
one  of  the  units  of  the  intrepid  "Iron  Brigade."  At  the 
second  battle  of  Bull  Run,  he  commanded  the  consoli- 
dated Second  and  Seventh  regiments,  and  was  noticed 
for  conspicuous  gallantry  and  skill  in  directing  certain 
difficult  and  important  movements  in  the  field.    After 


THE  NEW  ERA  161 

Gettysburg,  where  he  was  wounded,  taken  prisoner, 
paroled,  and  exchanged,  he  was  raised  to  the  rank  of 
brigade  commander.  Returning,  with  an  empty  sleeve, 
to  Madison,  he  was  seized  upon  by  the  Union  party,  while 
waiting  for  his  wound  to  heal,  and  induced  to  run  for 
secretary  of  state  in  the  election  of  1863.  Though 
a  relatively  young  man,  his  capacity  for  administration, 
his  frank  and  energetic  views  on  public  questions,  and 
his  personal  distinction  and  magnetism  immediately  se- 
cured him  the  complete  confidence  of  his  party  and  of 
the  state,  and  he  was  three  times  nominated,  by  acclama- 
tion, for  the  office  of  governor  and  each  time  elected. 
After  his  retirement  from  the  governorship,  he  was  ap- 
pointed by  President  Grant,  consul  at  Liverpool,  was 
later  made  consul  general  at  Paris,  and  was  Lowell's 
successor  at  the  court  of  Madrid.  General  Fairchild 
effectively  championed  the  state  university  and  had  an 
able  second  in  his  fellow-soldier,  Thomas  S.  Allen,  who 
was  secretary  of  state  during  the  first  four  years  of  his 
administration,  the  critical  years,  it  will  be  observed, 
during  which  the  university  was  reorganized  on  a  new 
and  permanent  basis  and  during  which  the  legislature 
committed  itself  to  the  policy  of  supporting  the  institu- 
tion by  direct  appropriations  of  money. 

The  reorganization  of  1866  was  precipitated  by  the 
fact  that  the  period  of  five  years  within  which  the  state 
might  "take  and  claim"  the  benefit  of  the  Morrill  Act 
was  drawing  near  a  close.  By  the  provisions  of  this  act. 
the  state  was  granted  two  hundred  and  forty  thousand 
acres  of  public  land,  "thirty  thousand  acres  for  each 
senator  and  representative  in  Congress,"  for  the  endow- 
ment of  "at  least  one  college  where  the  leading  object" 
should  "be,  without  excluding  other  scientific  and  classi- 
cal studies,  and  including  military  tactics,  to  teach  such 


162  WISCONSIN 

branches  of  learning  as  are  related  to  agriculture  and 
the  mechanic  arts, — in  order  to  promote  the  liberal  and 
practical  education  of  the  industrial  classes  in  the  sev- 
eral pursuits  and  professions  in  life."  There  could 
hardly  be  a  more  pointed  condemnation  of  the  manner  in 
which  the  university  land  fund  had  been  hitherto  man- 
aged by  the  state  than  the  care  with  which  the  national 
government  had  fortified  this  grant.  Not  only  did  it 
stipulate  that  all  expenses  of  management  should  be  paid 
by  the  state  and  provide  for  the  safe  investment  of  the 
fund  which  should  be  derived  from  the  sale  of  the  lands ; 
it  explicitly  forbade  the  application  of  any  portion  of  the 
fund  "directly  or  indirectly,  under  any  pretense  what- 
ever, to  the  purchase,  erection,  preservation  or  repair 
of  any  building  or  buildings."  In  so  doing  it  only 
declared  more  specifically  the  conditions  which  had 
been  obviously  implied  when  the  earlier  grants  were 
made.  It  reinforced  the  representations  which  were 
constantly  being  made  to  the  legislature  by  the  uni- 
versity authorities,  in  which,  fortunately,  they  now 
had  the  support  of  the  secretary  of  state  and  the 
governor. 

Nevertheless,  the  university  was  not  allowed  to  in- 
herit the  new  grant  without  some  opposition  from  its 
old  rivals.  Two  bills  providing  for  the  disposition  of  the 
grant  were  introduced  into  the  legislature  of  1866.  A 
senate  bill  proposed  to  confer  the  grant  upon  Ripon 
College,  while  simultaneously  a  bill  to  reorganize  the  uni- 
versity and  endow  one  of  its  departments  with  the  Agri- 
cultural College  lands  was  produced  in  the  assembly. 
An  interesting  contest  ensued,  the  bills  coming  up  for 
final  consideration  in  their  respective  houses  on  the  same 
day.  Senator  Proudfit  of  Madison  was  on  the  floor  of 
the  senate,  opposing  the  Ripon  Bill,  when  word  was 


THE  NEW  ERA  163 

passed  around  that  the  university  bill  had  just  passed 
the  assembly  by  a  vote  of  forty-nine  to  twenty-one.  In 
spite  of  this  shock,  the  bill  in  favor  of  Ripon  College 
went  through  by  a  vote  of  seventeen  to  ten.  On  the 
following  day,  however,  the  senate,  by  an  overwhelming 
vote,  concurred  in  the  assembly  bill,  and,  two  days  later, 
it  was  signed  by  Governor  Fairchild  and  became  a  law, 
April  12,  1866. 

The  new  organic  act  accomplished  by  somewhat  dif- 
ferent measures  a  number  of  the  ends  that  had  been 
sought  in  the  reorganization  which  came  to  naught  in 
1858.  In  order  to  qualify  it  for  the  benefits  of  the 
Morrill  Act,  the  university  was  made  to  consist  of, 
first,  a  college  of  arts ;  second,  a  college  of  letters ;  third, 
such  professional  and  other  colleges  as  might  from  time 
to  time  be  added.  The  college  of  arts  was  to  embrace 
primarily  "courses  of  instruction  in  the  mathematical, 
physical,  and  natural  sciences,  with  their  applications  to 
the  industrial  arts."  The  college  of  letters  was  to  be 
"co-existent  with  the  college  of  arts"  and  "embrace  a 
liberal  course  of  instruction  in  language,  literature,  and 
philosophy. ' '  The  courses  of  study  in  either  college  were 
to  be  supplemented  by  branches  included  in  the  curricu- 
lum of  the  other.  By  this  plan  of  organization,  it  was 
hoped  that  it  would  be  possible  to  start  the  Agricultural 
College  before  the  funds  from  its  land  grant  became 
available,  without  an  initial  outlay  for  buildings  and 
without  a  reduplication  of  instruction  in  those  necessary 
liberal  branches  which  were  already  taught  in  the  uni- 
versity. The  act  further  provided  that  all  departments 
of  the  university  should  be  "open  alike  to  male  and 
female  students,"  that  all  able-bodied  male  students 
should  receive  instruction  and  discipline  in  military 
tactics,   and  that  "no  instruction,   either  sectarian   in 


164  WISCONSIN 

religion  or  partisan  in  politics  should  ever  be  allowed." 
Certain  important  changes  were  effected  in  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  university.  In  place  of  a  chancellor,  the 
law  made  provision  for  a  president,  with  more  limited 
powers.  Although  "the  executive  head  of  the  institu- 
tion in  all  its  departments,"  the  president  had  no  seat 
or  voice  in  the  board  of  regents.  The  regents,  instead 
of  being  elected,  as  formerly,  by  the  legislature,  were  to 
be  appointed  by  the  governor.  To  secure  a  more  equal 
representation  on  the  board  of  all  parts  of  the  state, 
there  were  to  be  two  regents  from  each  congressional 
district  and  three  from  the  state  at  large.  In  addition, 
the  secretary  of  state  and  the  state  treasurer  were 
required  to  serve,  respectively,  as  secretary  and  treas- 
urer of  the  board.  In  1869,  the  law  was  amended  so 
as  to  reduce  the  number  of  the  regents  as  fast  as  their 
terms  should  expire  to  one  from  each  district,  plus  two 
from  the  state  at  large,  and  the  board  was  allowed  a 
hired  secretary,  thus  removing  the  burden  of  this  posi- 
tion from  the  office  of  the  secretary  of  state.  In  1870, 
the  superintendent  of  public  instruction  was  again  made, 
ex  officio,  a  member  of  the  board.  This  manner  of  con- 
stituting the  board  of  regents  has  been  found,  on  the 
whole,  satisfactory  and  adjustable  to  the  growth  of  popu- 
lation, and  except  for  the  later  addition  of  the  president 
of  the  university  to  the  board,  continues  to  the  present 
time. 

The  new  board  of  regents  was  chosen  by  Governor 
Fairchild  with  judicious  care  and  proved  a  strong  one. 
At  its  head  was  ex-Governor  Salomon  who  had  served  for 
several  years  on  the  outgoing  body.  He  was  a  graduate 
of  the  University  of  Berlin  who  had  been  identified  with 
the  state  almost  from  the  beginning.  His  address  before 
the  Historical  Society  on  the  occasion  of  its  formal  occu- 


THE  NEW  ERA  165 

pation  of  new  quarters  in  the  south  wing  of  the  capitol 
(1866)  reveals  him  as  a  man  of  culture  and  intelligent 
ideals.    As  president  of  the  new  organization,  his  force- 
ful appeals  for  financial  justice  to  the  university  were 
such  as  to  command  attention  and  he  doubtless  wielded 
a  strong  influence  in  this  direction.    The  other  members 
of    the    retiring    board    who    were    reappointed    were 
McMynn,  the  state  superintendent,  and,  a  year  later, 
Henry  D.  Barron,  who  had  been  speaker  of  the  assem- 
bly of  1866,  and  continued  on  the  board  until  1879. 
Of  the  new  appointees,   several,   for  various   reasons, 
deserve  particular  mention.     Charles  S.  Hamilton,  of 
Fond  du  Lac,  succeeded  to  the  presidency  of  the  board 
in  1869  and  served  ably  in  that  capacity  for  six  years. 
Two,  Samuel  Fallows  and  J.  B.  Parkinson,  were  alumni 
of  the  university.    The  military  career  of  the  former  has 
been  mentioned  above.     He  succeeded  McMynn  in  the 
office  of  state  superintendent  (1870-74).    Parkinson  had 
been  a  tutor  in  the  university  and  a  year  or  two  later 
rejoined   the   faculty,    and   entered   upon   his   lifelong 
career  in  the  service  of  the  institution.     Augustus  L. 
Smith,  a  former  tutor  in  the  university,  had  been  active 
in  its  reorganization  as  a  member  of  the  recent  legis- 
lature.    Angus  Cameron,  speaker  of  the  assembly  of 
1867,  served  as  a  regent  until  his  election,  in  1875,  to 
the  United   States  senate.     Others  who   regularly  at- 
tended the  meetings  of  the  board  and  were  active  in  the 
work  of  reconstruction  were  J.  C.  Cover  of  Lancaster, 
B.  R.  Hinckley  of  Oeonomowoc,  Jacob  S.  Bugh  of  Wau- 
toma,  H.  C.  Hobart  of  Milwaukee,  R.  B.  Sanderson  of 
Burke,  F.  0.  Thorpe  of  "West  Bend,  and,  until  his  death, 
in  1867,  Jackson  Hadley  of  Milwaukee.    Lastly,  through 
his  activity   as  chairman  of  the   executive   committee, 
N.   B.   Van   Slyke,   of  Madison,   became  virtually   the 


166  WISCONSIN 

business  manager  of  the  university  for  a  period  of  more 
than  a  decade. 

The  new  board  effected  an  organization  in  the  summer 
of  '66  and  addressed  itself  energetically  to  the  task  of 
rehabilitating  the  institution.  An  inventory  and  survey 
of  university  property  was  instituted  at  once  and  steps 
were  taken  to  put  it  in  order.  The  buildings  had  been 
neglected  and  were  disgracefully  out  of  repair.  Slates 
and  flashings  had  blown  from  the  roof  of  Main  Hall  and 
the  rains  had  poured  into  the  building  with  disastrous 
consequences.  In  some  of  the  rooms,  the  plaster  that 
should  have  been  on  the  ceiling  had  transferred  itself 
to  the  floor.  "Window  panes  in  great  numbers  had  been 
broken  out  and  never  replaced.  The  tiny  library  was 
uncatalogued  and  in  disorder.  In  addition  to  rectifying 
these  physical  conditions  out  of  their  slender  resources, 
the  regents  had  before  them  the  larger  tasks  of  securing 
and  equipping  a  farm  for  the  new  agricultural  depart- 
ment, of  impressing  upon  the  legislature  the  need  of 
more  generous  support,  and  of  reconstituting  the  faculty 
in  accordance  with  the  new  plan. 

By  a  special  act,  the  expense  of  administering  the 
university  fund  had  been  transferred  to  the  general 
treasury.  This  was  the  only  direct  financial  relief  af- 
forded by  the  legislature  of  1866.  Advantage  had  been 
taken  of  the  contest  over  the  location  of  the  Agricultural 
College  to  force  upon  Dane  County  a  portion  of  the 
expense  incident  to  its  foundation.  The  new  organic  act 
required  the  board  of  regents  "to  make  arrangements 
for  securing,  without  expense  to  the  state,  or  to  the  funds 
of  the  university,  suitable  lands  in  the  immediate  vicinity 
of  the  university,  not  less  than  two  hundred  acres,  in- 
cluding the  university  grounds,  for  an  experimental 
farm."    To  this  end,  another  section  of  the  law  author- 


THE  NEW  ERA  167 

ized  the  supervisors  of  Dane  County  to  issue  twenty- 
year  bonds  for  the  amount  of  forty  thousand  dollars,  the 
proceeds  of  their  sale  to  be  delivered  to  the  board  of 
regents  and  by  them  applied  to  the  purchase  and  im- 
provement of  the  aforesaid  experimental  farm.  Unless 
this  action  should  be  taken  and  the  proper  guarantees 
furnished  within  thirty  days  after  the  law  became  ef- 
fective, the  entire  act  was  to  remain  null  and  void.  The 
county  officers  concluded  that  it  would  be  to  the  interest 
of  the  county  to  secure  the  location  of  the  agricultural 
college  at  Madison,  and  the  bonds  were  duly  issued. 
Under  authorization  of  the  next  legislature,  they  were 
taken  up  by  the  University  Fund,  thus  saving  to  the 
university  twenty  per  cent,  of  their  value,  which  it  had 
stood  to  lose  by  their  hypothecation.  With  the  proceeds 
of  a  temporary  hypothecation  the  regents,  after  consider- 
ing various  other  properties,  purchased,  in  1866,  at  an 
aggregate  cost  of  $27,058,  one  hundred  and  ninety-five 
acres  adjoining  the  original  campus  on  the  west.  The 
most  desirable  portion  of  the  tract,  that  lying  along  the 
shore  of  Lake  Mendota  immediately  adjacent  to  the  cam- 
pus, had  been  platted  into  city  lots.  The  difficult  trans- 
actions involved  in  their  acquisition  from  about  sixty  dif- 
ferent owners  were  carried  out  chiefly  by  Regent  Van 
Slyke.  With  these  purchases  the  university  acquired 
several  private  dwellings  of  which  the  most  interesting 
was  Professor  Read's  stone  house  which  still  stands  on 
the  crest  of  Observatory  Hill.1 

The  public  lands  for  the  endowment  of  the  Agricul- 
tural College  had  been  located  immediately  after  the 
formal  acceptance  of  the  terms  of  the  Morrill  Grant  in 
1863.     A  tier  of  counties  in  the  north  central  part  of 

1  This  house  was  the  presidential  residence  from  1867  until 
1878,  and  since  that  time  has  heen  the  home  of  the  director  of 
Washburn  Observatory. 


168  WISCONSIN 

the  state,  with  Marathon  County  as  a  center,  contained 
the  new  university  lands.  In  the  location  of  them,  the 
old  policy  had  been  pursued  of  selecting  lands  that  were 
suitable  for  agriculture,  on  the  theory  that  they  would 
find  a  readier  sale  than  the  pine  lands  of  the  north  and 
that  their  sale  would  accelerate  colonization.1  The  lands 
were  placed  on  the  market  in  1866  at  the  regular  gov- 
ernment price  of  a  dollar  and  a  quarter  an  acre.  They 
were  sold  on  ten  years'  time,  one  quarter  down,  the 
remainder  bearing  seven  per  cent,  interest.  During  the 
first  three  years,  sales  were  slow,  the  total  fund  accumu- 
lated by  September  30,  1868,  amounting  to  only  a  trifle 
over  twenty-five  thousand  dollars.  Then  the  sales  took 
a  great  bound  and,  in  the  two  following  years,  over  half 
of  the  entire  grant  was  sold  out.  By  1874,  Bascom's 
first  year,  the  fund  had  crept  up  to  $236,000,  the  income 
from  it,  for  the  first  time,  exceeding  that  from  the 
original  university  fund.  Thereafter,  the  best  of  the 
lands  having  been  sold,  the  disposal  of  the  remainder  was 
a  tedious  process  and  somewhat  insignificant,  for,  by 
this  time,  a  new  source  of  income  had  been  found. 

The  maintenance  of  the  agricultural  department  had 
given  the  university  a  new  "talking  point"  in  its  appeals 
to  the  legislature,  and  these  had  begun  to  yield  some 
fruit.  In  response  to  a  memorial  from  the  board  of 
regents,  together  with  a  vigorous  statement  of  the  uni- 
versity case  by  Salomon,  which  was  strongly  reiterated 
by  the  secretary  of  state,  and  by  the  governor  in  his 

1  The  short-sightedness  of  this  policy  receives  emphatic  com- 
ment from  the  experience  of  Cornell  University.  There  being  no 
public  lands  in  the  state  of  New  York,  Cornell  received  its  endow- 
ment in  the  form  of  land  scrip  and  a  large  share  of  its  lands  were 
located  in  the  pine  country  of  northern  Wisconsin.  Cornell  held 
her  lands  until  about  1885,  and  sold  them  at  prices  which  netted 
her  an  annual  income  rather  in  excess  of  the  total  fund  which 
Wisconsin  realized  from  the  sale  of  the  entire  agricultural  grant. 


THE  NEW  ERA  169 

annual  message,  the  legislature  of  1867  appropriated  to 
the  university  the  sum  of  $7,303.76  per  annum  for  a 
period  of  ten  years.  This  was  the  interest  at  seven  per 
cent,  upon  the  amount  by  which  the  university  fund  had 
been  reduced  through  the  erection  of  buildings  and  was 
equivalent  to  a  restoration  of  that  amount  to  the  fund. 
By  this  act  the  legislature  virtually  acknowledged  the 
responsibility  of  the  state  for  the  housing  of  the  univer- 
sity. But  the  institution  had  now  outgrown  its  old 
quarters  and  the  next  legislature  was  induced  to  appro- 
priate $50,000  for  the  erection  of  a  new  building  for 
the  Female  College.  Two  years  later  (1872),  after  care- 
fully investigating  the  condition  of  the  institution,  the 
legislature  levied  an  annual  tax  of  $10,000,  made  directly 
available  to  the  use  of  the  board  of  regents  for  the 
maintenance  of  the  university.  Prepended  to  this  act 
was  a  significant  preamble  explicitly  declaring  that  the 
policy  of  the  state  government  with  respect  to  its  educa- 
tional lands,  "although  resulting  in  a  general  benefit  to 
the  whole  state,"  had  impaired  the  university's  source  of 
income  and  had  therefore  devolved  upon  the  state  a 
permanent  responsibility  for  the  support  of  the  institu- 
tion. The  origination  and  passage  of  this  act  was  to  a 
large  extent  due  to  the  efforts  of  an  alumnus,  John  C. 
Spooner  of  the  class  of  '64.  At  last,  nearly  a  quarter 
of  a  century  after  its  foundation,  the  university  had 
been  relieved  from  utter  reliance  on  its  national  endow- 
ment and  was  placed  in  a  position  of  financial  de- 
pendency upon  the  state.  The  new  appropriation  aug- 
mented the  annual  income  by  nearly  one-third,  but  more 
important  than  the  immediate  relief  afforded  by  the  act 
was  the  establishment  of  a  precedent  of  far-reaching 
effect. 

The  first  step  toward  the  reconstitution  of  the  teaching 


170  WISCONSIN 

force  was  to  secure  a  president.  Throughout  the  war 
period  the  university  had  been  enfeebled  by  the  absence 
of  an  executive  of  recognized  authority.  The  routine 
tasks  of  a  head  officer  had  been  acceptably  performed 
by  Sterling,  and  there  were  those  who  thought  he  should 
have  been  given  the  titular  honor  which  went  with  his 
duties;  but  the  board  were  evidently  unwilling  to  con- 
fide the  destinies  of  the  institution  permanently  to  his 
hands.  Though  it  is  hard  to  make  out  whence,  at  that 
period,  the  salary  of  such  an  officer  was  expected  to 
come,  the  regents  had  begun,  as  early  as  1865,  the  search 
for  a  chancellor  and  had  offered  the  place  to  Josiah  L. 
Pickard,  then  superintendent  of  the  public  schools  of 
Chicago.  Pickard,  it  will  be  remembered,  had  been  a 
regent  of  the  university  during  the  closing  years  of 
Lathrop's  administration  and  had  been  a  member  of  the 
committee  which  secured  the  arrangement  with  Barnard. 
As  superintendent  of  public  instruction  he  had  been 
associated  with  the  board  until  1864.  His  acquaintance 
with  the  affairs  of  the  university  did  not  lead  him  to 
look  favorably  upon  the  offer  of  the  chancellorship. 
After  the  passage  of  the  new  act,  he  was  tendered  the 
presidency,  but,  although  the  board  had  expected  a 
favorable  reply,  he  again  refused,  having  decided  evi- 
dently that  the  prospects  of  the  institution  were  still 
unpromising.  The  presidency  was  then  offered  to  Paul 
A.  Chadbourne,  but  he  too  declined  after  twice  visiting 
the  state,  the  second  time  with  the  expectation  of  ac- 
cepting the  place.  Rather  than  suspend  operations  alto- 
gether, arrangements  were  hastily  made  to  continue  in- 
struction in  the  university,  for  one  year  more  (1866-67), 
substantially  as  it  had  been  before. 

Chadbourne 's  dissatisfaction  with  conditions  at  "Wis- 
consin chiefly  pertained  to  the  clause  of  the  organic  law 


THE  NEW  ERA  171 

which  demanded  that  all  departments  of  the  university 
should  be  "open  alike  to  male  and  female  students." 
Upon  representations  from  the  regents  to  the  effect  that, 
unless  this  requirement  were  qualified,  it  would  be  "ex- 
tremely difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  secure  the  services 
of  a  thoroughly  competent  and  experienced  educational 
man  at  the  head  of  the  institution,"  an  amendment  was 
secured  in  the  next  legislature,  providing  for  the  admis- 
sion of  women  "under  such  regulations  and  restrictions 
as  the  Board  of  Regents"  might  deem  "proper."  This 
accommodation  having  been  made,  Paul  Chadbourne  was 
unanimously  elected  president  of  the  university,  June  22, 
1867,  and  this  time  accepted.  The  salary  agreed  upon, 
three  thousand  dollars,  was  the  largest  the  university 
had  yet  paid  and  compared  favorably  with  similar  com- 
pensations elsewhere. 

It  was  an  excellent  appointment.  The  new  president 
was  not  a  deep  scholar  nor  was  he  a  great  man  of  fixed 
and  constant  purpose ;  but  he  came  of  a  good  school  and 
his  capacities  were  of  a  sort  to  make  him  easily  the 
man  of  the  hour  in  this  particular  time  and  place.  A 
graduate  of  Williams,  class  of  1848,  Chadbourne  had 
become,  five  years  later,  professor  of  Botany  and  Chem- 
istry in  the  college  and,  not  long  after,  of  Natural 
History.  This  association  lasted  throughout  the  fifties, 
though  he  was  seldom  in  residence  during  the  entire 
college  year.  He  had  been  connected  with  various  other 
colleges  as  lecturer  and  in  an  executive  capacity  and  had 
delivered  courses  of  lectures,  before  the  Smithsonian  In- 
stitute on  natural  history,  and  on  natural  theology  before 
the  Lowell  Institute,  both  of  which  were  subsequently 
published.  He  had  led  a  number  of  natural  history 
expeditions  in  far  regions  and  had  traveled  in  Europe, 
had  dabbled  in  politics  and  in  business.     He  came  to 


172  WISCONSIN 

Wisconsin  direct  from  the  presidency  of  the  State  Agri- 
cultural College  at  Amherst,  a  fact  which,  taken  in  con- 
nection with  his  scientific  bent,  peculiarly  enhanced 
his  acceptableness  here,  at  the  moment.  After  leaving 
Wisconsin  he  traveled  for  two  years  in  the  far  west, 
partly  for  the  sake  of  his  health,  partly  to  gratify  scien- 
tific curiosity,  and  partly  in  the  hope  of  using  for  his 
material  advantage  a  supposed  gift  for  recognizing 
metalliferous  rocks.  In  1872,  he  succeeded  Mark 
Hopkins  as  president  of  Williams  College.  The  contro- 
versial question  of  his  success  in  this  post  does  not  con- 
cern us  here.  He  held  the  Williams  presidency  for  nine 
years.  Toward  the  end  of  this  term  of  service,  he  became 
involved  in  business  enterprises  and  suffered  sharp  re- 
verses. He  died  two  years  later  (1883)  and  was  interred 
in  the  college  burying  ground  at  Williamstown. 

Physically,  President  Chadbourne  was  of  an  insignifi- 
cant presence,  which  he  redeemed  by  a  fine  head  and  eye 
and  a  confident  manner.  He  was  an  accomplished  popu- 
lar orator  and  an  effective  class-room  teacher.  His  mind 
was  rather  ample  than  profound,  and  his  learning  was  of 
the  same  character,  superficial,  but  exact  and  thorough 
as  far  as  it  went,  and  easily  commanded.  He  was  known 
to  confess  that  he  thought  he  could  teach  any  subject  in 
the  curriculum  better  than  it  was  generally  taught,  and 
he  was  probably  right.  When  he  sought  a  man  for  a 
professorship,  he  was  not  intimidated  by  a  candidate's 
lack  of  special  knowledge  in  the  branch  to  be  taught,  if 
he  thought  him  a  good  man,  and  he  usually  chose  men 
who  were  comparatively  young.  His  moral  character 
was  analogous  to  his  intellectual  constitution.  In 
theology  Chadbourne  espoused,  while  still  young,  "ex- 
treme Calvinistic  views,  superficially  taken  up  and  very 
narrowly  held."    On  one  occasion,  while  at  Madison,  he 


THE  NEW  ERA  173 

rose  and  left  the  church  in  the  midst  of  a  sermon,  be- 
cause of  a  skeptical  reference  to  the  Garden  of  Eden. 
Of  the  deepest  problems  of  human  life  he  was  wont  to 
say,  "I  settled  all  those  questions  when  I  was  in  the 
seminary."  Yet  a  severe  critic  refers  to  him  as  "a, 
warm-hearted  Christian  man."  "He  was  an  open  and 
outspoken  and  agreeable  man,  .  .  .  stirring  and  restless, 
fickleminded,  ambitious  of  place  and  power,  fond  of 
money,  overestimating  his  own  abilities  and  the  com- 
mercial worth  of  his  services."  The  quotation  is  from 
one  who  knew  him  closely  and  was  a  keen  analyst  and 
frank  recorder  of  human  traits.1  I  continue  from  the 
same  source.  "Chadbourne  early  acquired  and  natu- 
rally improved  by  intercourse  with  all  sorts  of  men  in 
many  climes,  a  good  judgment  of  his  fellowmen,  of  their 
salient  tendencies  and  radical  character.  .  .  .  His  ver- 
dicts in  general  were  charitable  and  correct.  He  made 
sharp  and  courageous  distinctions  between  what  he 
deemed  right  and  wrong,  clean  and  foul ;  but  he  did 
not  distrust  others  until  he  saw  firm  reasons  for  dis- 
trusting them.  ...  He  was  rather  an  optimist  than  a 
pessimist." 

All  that  we  can  learn  of  Chadbourne,  then,  depicts 
him  as  a  man  of  sanguine,  active  temper,  facile  and 
ready,  possessed  of  considerable  initiative  and  a  wide 
acquaintance  with  men  and  affairs,  but  of  no  great 
depth  or  staying  power.  These  are  the  outlines  of  a 
character  more  suited,  on  the  whole,  to  gain  popularity 
than  to  retain  it;  of  a  man  better  fitted  to  start  an 
enterprise  than  to  see  it  through.  It  is  not  difficult 
to  understand,  therefore,  why,  by  those  best  qualified  to 
judge,  Chadbourne 's  connection  with  the  University  of 
Wisconsin  has  been  regarded  as  a  fortunate  one.     The 

1  Arthur  L.  Perry,  Williamstown  and  Williams  College. 


174  WISCONSIN 

period  of  his  stay,  barely  three  years,  was  too  short  for 
his  superficies  to  wear  thin,  and  it  was  sufficient  to  let 
his  prompt  and  confident  qualities  perform  a  useful 
service  in  blocking  out,  boldly  and  without  delay,  the 
institution  which  was  to  be  more  solidly  developed  under 
Bascom  a  few  years  later. 

The  board  after  considerable  maneuvering  had  decided 
to  rest  upon  the  new  president  the  responsibility  for  the 
reconstitution  of  the  faculty.  At  the  time  of  Chad- 
bourne's  election  the  members  of  the  old  faculty  were 
favored  with  the  receipt  of  a  formal  resolution  by  the 
board  in  which  they  were  pointedly  tendered  the  board's 
appreciation  of  their  past  labors  and  "well  wishes  for 
their  prosperity  in  the  fields  of  labor  to  which  they 
[might]  be  called."  The  president  was  asked  to  submit 
as  soon  as  practicable,  nominations  for  the  various  chairs. 
Eead  had  resigned  the  preceding  April  to  accept  the 
presidency  of  the  University  of  Missouri,  and  Butler  had 
asked  for  leave  of  absence  for  the  ensuing  year.  On 
June  25,  Chadbourne  nominated  William  F.  Allen  for 
the  chair  of  Ancient  Languages  and  History,  John  B. 
Parkinson  to  be  professor  of  Mathematics  and  principal 
of  the  Preparatory  Department,  and  Samuel  Fallows, 
professor  of  Rhetoric  and  director  of  the  Normal  De- 
partment, and  all  three  were  elected.  The  two  first 
entered  upon  their  duties  the  following  autumn. 
Fallows  declined  the  appointment  and  his  place  was 
filled,  for  one  year,  by  T.  H.  Haskell.  He  was 
followed  by  S.  H.  Carpenter,  who  had  been  a  tutor  in 
the  university  under  Lathrop  and  had  eked  out 
Professor  Read's  last  year.  In  June,  1869,  Carpenter 
was  permanently  elected  to  the  chair  of  Logic,  Rhetoric, 
and  -English  Literature.  The  remainder  of  the  old 
faculty  were  continued  in  service,  with  the  understand- 


THE  NEW  ERA  175 

ing  that  their  chairs  would  become  formally  vacant  at 
the  end  of  the  year,  1867-68.  There  was  a  petition 
from  the  alumni  and  another  from  the  students 
in  favor  of  the  retention  of  Sterling  and  a  com- 
munication from  citizens  of  Milwaukee  in  favor  of 
Fuchs;  but  no  immediate  action  was  taken  in  these 
cases. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  board  in  February,  1868,  there 
was  brought  about  an  important  change  of  the  precedent 
with  respect  to  the  appointment  of  members  of  the 
faculty.  At  this  time  the  president  nominated  John  B. 
Feuling  for  the  chair  of  Modern  Languages  and  Com- 
parative Philology.  Professor  Fuchs  was  also  a  candi- 
date for  this  position.  It  had  been  the  practice  of  the 
board  of  regents  to  elect  members  of  the  faculty  by 
majority  ballot  upon  the  several  candidates  for  each 
chair.  On  the  first  ballot,  according  to  this  procedure, 
Fuchs  and  Feuling  each  received  five  votes.  There 
being  no  choice,  the  meeting  adjourned.  The  next  day, 
February  14,  1868,  after  passing  a  vote  of  confidence  in 
the  president,  the  board  resolved  that,  thereafter,  votes 
should  be  taken,  aye  and  no,  upon  the  nominations  of  the 
president.  The  nomination  of  Feuling  was  then  pre- 
sented and  he  was  elected  with  only  one  dissenting  vote. 

At  the  same  meeting,  there  were  elected,  on  nomination 
by  the  president,  John  E.  Davies,  professor  of  Chem- 
istry and  Natural  History,  William  W.  Daniells,  pro- 
fessor of  Agriculture,  and  Addison  E.  Verrill,  Compara- 
tive Anatomy  and  Entomology.  It  was  not  until  the 
following  June  that  Sterling  was  elected  to  the  chair  of 
Natural  Philosophy  and  Astronomy.  To  the  group  of 
men  then  brought  together  should  be  added  R.  D.  Irving, 
who  was  one  of  Chadbourne's  most  distinguished  ap- 
pointments, though  he  did  not  join  the  faculty  until 


176  WISCONSIN 

after  Chadbourne  had  left.  With  the  exception  of  Ver- 
rill,  whose  stay  was  brief,  the  group  of  men  appointed  to 
the  central  faculty  under  Chadbourne  finished  their  lives 
in  the  service  of  the  institution  and  were  the  backbone  of 
the  college  for  at  least  a  decade. 

The  inauguration  of  departments  and  of  new  courses 
of  study  went  forward  briskly.  During  Chadbourne 's 
first  year,  the  project  of  a  department  of  Law,  which 
had  fallen  through  ten  years  before,  was  revived  and 
pushed  to  a  successful  issue.  At  first  the  amount  of 
money  which  could  be  devoted  to  this  object  was  only 
about  two  thousand  dollars  per  annum.  With  this  sum, 
however,  members  of  the  local  bar,  of  requisite  ability, 
could  be  induced  to  serve  as  regular  instructors,  while 
the  justices  of  the  Supreme  Court  gave,  gratuitously  for 
a  number  of  years,  supplementary  courses  of  lectures. 
During  the  first  year  (1868-69)  the  law  faculty,  in  ad- 
dition to  the  three  justices,  Dixon,  Cole,  and  Paine, 
consisted  of  J.  H.  Carpenter,  dean  and  professor,  and 
W.  H.  Vilas,  '58,  professor.  The  following  year  the 
faculty  was  enlarged  by  the  appointment  of  H.  S.  Orton 
as  dean,  Carpenter  and  Vilas  continuing  as  professors. 
For  many  years  the  "Law  School"  was  quartered  in 
downtown  rooms  and  in  the  State  Capitol  and  had  little 
contact  with  the  rest  of  the  university.  The  course  was 
for  one  year  and,  except  that  those  who  were  not  col- 
legiate graduates  must  be  twenty  years  of  age,  there 
were  no  admission  requirements  beyond  "credentials  of 
good  moral  character. "  After  the  first  year  the  matricu- 
lation fee  was  five  dollars  and  tuition  ten  dollars  a 
term.  Instruction  was  largely  by  lectures,  with  moot- 
court  practice  under  direction  of  a  professor-judge.  The 
first  class  consisted  of  fifteen  students  of  whom  twelve 
were  admitted  to  the  bar;  there  were  ninety-four  grad- 


THE  NEW  ERA  177 

uates  in  the  first  five  years.  For  a  considerable  period 
the  graduates  in  Law  annually  outnumbered  those  in  all 
other  departments  of  the  university. 

The  technical  departments  that  had  been  projected  in 
connection  with  the  new  College  of  Arts  were  likewise 
promptly  initiated,  but  their  development  was  a  much 
slower  process.  Scientific  education  was  still  in  its  in- 
fancy in  this  country ;  actual  specialists  in  the  technical 
applications  of  science  to  industry  were  difficult  to  find, 
and  still  more  difficult  to  enlist  in  academic  teaching,  and 
students,  at  first,  showed  little  inclination  to  embrace 
any  opportunities  which  might  be  offered  for  a  high 
degree  of  specialization  looking  toward  a  particular  trade 
or  profession. 

To  be  sure,  the  new  options  presented  by  the  general 
course  offered  in  the  College  of  Arts  soon  demonstrated 
their  popularity.  Although  at  first  outlined  as  a  three 
years'  course,  the  general  course  prescribed  in  the  Col- 
lege of  Arts  was  extended,  in  1869,  to  occupy  four  years. 
Its  graduates  immediately  outnumbered  those  in  the 
College  of  Letters.  Indeed,  an  analysis  of  the  attend- 
ance from  1869  to  1871,  shows  that  there  had  been  no 
substantial  increase  in  the  regular  classical  course  since 
1859-61,  although,  in  the  meantime,  the  general  attend- 
ance had  grown  from  less  than  two  hundred  to  about 
five  hundred  students.  The  reason  for  this  adduced  by 
the  regents,  viz.,  "the  growing  demand  for  collegiate 
education  in  the  direction  of  scientific  studies,"  was  not 
the  only  one.  The  popularity  of  the  course  in  the  Col- 
lege of  Arts  may  be  considerably  accounted  for,  first. 
by  its  easier  requirements  for  admission,  and  second,  by 
the  options  it  allowed  of  the  substitution  of  modern  lan- 
guages and  of  studies  in  general  and  applied  science  for 
the  ancient  languages  of  the  classical  course.    The  shap- 


178  WISCONSIN 

ing  of  these  more  or  less  random  courses  was  to  be,  as 
has  been  said,  a  relatively  slow  development. 

All  eyes  were  centered  at  first  upon  the  department  of 
Agriculture.  The  leading  professorship  in  this  depart- 
ment had  proved  a  difficult  one  to  fill,  requiring,  as  it 
did,  for  the  satisfactory  discharge  of  its  duties,  a  man 
of  scientific  training  combined  with  practical  experience. 
After  a  year  and  a  half  spent  in  the  search,  in  course  of 

which  the  position  had  been  refused  by ,  a 

resident  of  the  state,  and  the  president  had  declared  his 
intention  of  undertaking  its  duties  himself  until  a  suit- 
able person  could  be  found,  a  decision  had  been  reached 
in  February,  1868.  William  W.  Daniells,  who  was  then 
elected  to  the  professorship  of  Agriculture,  had  been  an 
instructor  at  Michigan  Agricultural  College,  of  which  he 
was  a  graduate,  and  had  studied  at  Lawrence  Scientific 
School.  In  addition  to  a  good  scientific  training,  for  the 
time,  he  had  the  usual  country  boy's  familiarity  with  the 
processes  of  the  farm,  improved  by  intelligent  observa- 
tion and  study.  At  the  time  of  his  appointment,  he  was 
in  his  twenty-eighth  year. 

The  first  work  of  the  professor  of  Agriculture  and 
Chemistry  was  pioneer  labor,  whether  in  fitting  up  a 
laboratory  in  the  cellar  of  old  Main  Hall  for  the  course 
in  Analytical  Chemistry,  or  fitting  for  the  plow  the 
virgin  acres  of  the  new  experimental  farm.  The  latter 
was  the  scene  of  much  activity  during  the  summer  of 
1868.  Stumps  and  trees  were  cleared  away ;  stones  were 
hauled  to  the  shore  of  the  lake,  beginning  the  line  of 
bowlders  which  still  serves  as  a  breakwater  along  that 
exposure  of  the  university  campus.  Ground  was  pre- 
pared for  a  vineyard  on  the  south  slope  of  Observatory 
Hill,  and  the  northward  slope,  next  to  the  lake,  contain- 


THE  NEW  ERA  179 

ing  nearly  ten  acres,  was  plowed  for  an  apple  orchard. 
A  substantial  farm  barn  and  a  modest  farmhouse  were 
erected,  fences  were  rearranged  so  as  to  throw  all  of 
the  university  property  into  one  inclosure,  and  a  system 
of  drives  and  avenues  was  laid  out  and  partly  graded. 
In  addition,  the  university  grounds  were  considerably 
improved.  The  groves  were  cleaned  up;  dead  limbs, 
stumps,  and  trees  were  "so  far  removed  as  to  admit  of 
the  entire  grounds  being  mowed,  with  the  exception  of 
that  portion  along  the  bank  of  the  lake,  which  [was]  left 
in  the  wild  state  for  botanical  purposes."  Two  hundred 
evergreens  were  set  out  upon  the  grounds;  an  arbor- 
vitae  hedge  was  planted  "between  the  stiles  in  front  of 
the  University,"  and  a  row  of  Norway  spruce  along  the 
south  line  of  the  farm.  The  clearing  and  fencing  of  the 
grounds,  the  planting  of  the  vineyard  and  orchard  and 
of  evergreen  screens  along  the  avenues  and  borders,  and 
the  grading  of  the  roads  occupied  the  two  following 
seasons,  so  that,  by  the  end  of  President  Chadbourne's 
three  years,  the  system  of  grounds  and  drives,  as  far  as 
University  Bay,  had  taken  on  very  much  the  arrange- 
ment which  they  retained  until  comparatively  recent 
times.1  A  portion  of  this  labor  was  performed  by  stu- 
dents, "at  a  maximum  price  of  twelve  and  a  half  cents 
per  hour."  And  the  president  himself  had  put  his 
hand,  if  not  to  the  plow,  exactly,  at  least  to  the  spade. 
A  student  orator,  in  bidding  him  farewell  at  his  last 
commencement,  sentimentally  referred  to  the  trees 
"which  his  own  hand  had  planted"  as  fitting  memorials 
of  his  influence.  And,  without  a  doubt,  some  of  the 
splendid  trees  still  flourishing  in  the  glade  east  of 
Observatory  Hill  are  among  those  referred  to. 

In  the  meantime  all  of  the  ground  west  of  University 


180  WISCONSIN 

Hall  had  been  surveyed  and  platted,  for  purposes  of 
record,  into  acre  lots,  and  an  effort  was  made,  by  varia- 
tions in  planting,  to  give  the  character  of  experimental, 
or  model  operations  to  all  enterprises  upon  university 
land.  From  the  first  a  few  experiments  were  carried  on 
in  the  planting  of  farm  crops.  Eight  plats  of  potatoes 
and  four  acres  of  corn  were  under  observation  the  first 
year.  The  corn  project  was  defeated  by  heavy  rains; 
but  the  other  experiment,  favored  by  the  virgin  soil,  was 
completed  and  recorded.  Though  inconclusive  in  most 
particulars,  the  experiment  established  two  facts  in 
regard  to  potato  culture,  first,  that  hand  picking  of 
potato  beetles,  if  persistently  followed  up,  is  effective; 
and  second,  that  persistence  in  this  process  is  expensive. 
But  it  should  not  be  lightly  inferred  that  the  experiments 
of  these  early  years,  inevitably  of  limited  scope  and 
empirical  in  character,  were  trivial  or  useless.  They 
had  to  do  with  the  merits  of  different  varieties,  the 
choice  and  treatment  of  seeds,  the  advantages  of  dif- 
ferent methods  of  planting  and  cultivation,  the  destruc- 
tion of  pests,  the  virtue  of  fertilizers,  relative  profits 
among  such  staple  crops  as  corn,  potatoes,  wheat,  oats, 
barley,  and  grass ;  and  the  experiments  gradually  became 
more  varied,  systematic,  and  exact.  In  the  opinion  of 
Dean  Henry  the  signal  achievement  of  the  experimental 
farm,  under  Daniells'  regime,  was  the  discovery,  develop- 
ment, and  demonstration  of  the  remarkable  qualities  of 
Manchurian  barley  and  its  dissemination  throughout  the 
state  and  the  Northwest.  With  the  year  1869,  there 
being  no  branch  of  the  U.  S.  Signal  Service  nearer  than 
Milwaukee,  the  experimental  farm  undertook  the  sys- 
tematic observation  of  meteorological  conditions.  The 
continuous  local  weather  record  dates  from  that  time. 
Enough  has  been  said  to  show  that  the  professor  of  Agri- 


THE  NEW  ERA  181 

culture  had  no  sinecure.  In  his  odd  moments  he  per- 
formed the  service  of  analytical  chemist  for  inquisitive 
persons  throughout  the  state,  and  he  was  expected  to 
give  university  instruction  in  advanced  Chemistry,  Eco- 
nomic Botany,  and  Practical  Agriculture. 

It  is  perhaps  not  remarkable  that  the  technical  course 
in  Agriculture  was  among  the  slowest  to  show  vitality, 
notwithstanding  the  fact  that  no  subject  had  been  more 
emphasized  in  the  reorganization  of  the  university.  The 
catalogue  immediately  devoted  lavish  space  to  the  an- 
nouncements of  the  department,  including  full  outlines 
of  a  systematic  course  of  study  leading  to  a  special 
degree;  but  as  late  as  1880,  the  board  of  visitors,  with 
unmistakable  point,  reported  themselves  as  "finding  no 
students  in,  and  learning  of  no  graduates  from  the  agri- 
cultural department."  This  slander  has  been  so  often 
repeated  that  it  should  be  corrected.  There  was  a  stu- 
dent of  agriculture  in  the  university  for  two  consecutive 
years,  William  West  Brown,  of  Merton,  Waukesha 
County,  who  graduated  Bachelor  of  Agriculture  in  1878, 
and  rose,  ten  years  later,  to  be  postmaster  of  his  native 
village.  From  1868  until  1873,  elective  courses  were 
announced  in  such  subjects  as  Practical  Botany  and 
Agriculture,  History  of  Useful  Plants,  Climatology,  Hor- 
ticulture, Examination  of  Soils,  Forestry,  Natural  His- 
tory of  Domestic  Animals,  Entomology ;  but  few  of  these 
courses  were  actually  offered  or  taken,  and  the  rigorous 
candor  of  Bascom's  editorship  soon  abridged  the  litera- 
ture pertaining  to  them.  Agriculture  and  Meteorology, 
previously  elective,  appears  as  a  prescribed  five-hour 
study  for  sophomores  in  the  College  of  Arts,  for  one  term 
(1871-72),  and  Agriculture  as  a  two-hour  study  the 
following  year.  Thereafter,  such  studies,  even  as  options, 
were  relegated  to  the  junior  and  senior  years  of  the 


182  WISCONSIN 

special  course  in  Agriculture,  in  which,  as  we  have  just 
noticed,  there  was  but  one  student  in  ten  years. 

The  failure  of  Agriculture  as  a  college  study,  during 
these  years,  may  doubtless  be  attributed,  in  large  meas- 
ure, to  general  conditions;  but  the  failure  was  also,  in 
some  degree,  a  personal  one.  The  talents  of  the  pro- 
fessor of  Agriculture  were  not  such  as  would  be  likely  to 
procure  him  a  striking  success  in  the  introduction  of  a 
new  and  untried  subject  of  study.  Daniells  was  a  kind 
and  lovable  man,  conscientious  and  diligent,  and  a  sound 
analytical  chemist  who  readily  won  the  regard  of  those 
students  who  came  in  close  contact  with  him  in  the 
laboratory.  He  is  justly  revered  as  one  of  the  group  of 
sincere  scholars  who  placed  the  teaching  of  science  in 
the  university  upon  a  solid  basis.  He  was,  however,  a 
plodding  thinker,  of  no  discursive  liveliness,  and  was  a 
confused  and  absent-minded  lecturer.  His  audience  was 
composed  largely  of  aspiring  youths  who  had  come  di- 
rectly from  the  farm  to  the  classroom,  not  to  hear  "wise 
talk  of  the  kind  of  weather,"  but  to  be  wafted  by  glori- 
ous spirits  into  the  arena  of  Science.  This  last  con- 
dition might  have  been  a  favorable  one  in  the  case  of  a 
brilliant  lecturer  who  possessed  the  faculty  of  illuminat- 
ing familiar  processes  through  the  elucidation  of  occult 
principles;  but  this  was  exactly  the  gift  in  which  the 
professor  of  Agriculture  was  deficient. 

The  mention  of  Daniells  ought  not,  however,  to  end  in 
a  negative;  he  was  a  force  in  the  university  in  these 
formative  years  and  belonged  to  that  positive  and  con- 
structive group  in  the  faculty  who  worked  earnestly  and 
intelligently  toward  better  and  better  things. 

What  has  been  said  of  Daniells  applies,  except  for  this 
last  point,  and  change  of  emphasis,  to  Davies,  who  shared 
with  him  the  teaching  of  the  branches  which  most  readily 


THE  NEW  ERA  183 

admitted  of  application  to  agriculture.  In  both  cases 
the  fiction  was  soon  abandoned  of  any  close  application 
of  their  teachings  to  practical  agriculture  and  the  ener- 
gies of  each  were  eventually  absorbed  into  the  general 
science  teaching  of  the  college,  Daniells  being  largely 
occupied  with  the  work  in  Chemistry  and  Davies  with 
that  in  Physics.  The  real  beginnings  of  agricultural 
education  at  Wisconsin  date  from  the  middle  of  Bascom  's 
administration  and  were  brought  about  by  new  pressures 
and  new  men. 

The  technical  courses  of  Engineering  in  the  university 
had  their  origin  in  two  separate  forces,  one  the  military 
department,  the  other  the  personal  influence  of  Roland 
D.  Irving.  The  course  in  Civil  Engineering  "as  a  De- 
partment of  the  College  of  Arts,  on  the  same  footing  in 
all  respects  with  the  Agricultural  Course ' '  was  formally 
established  by  the  board  of  regents  in  June,  1870,  and 
the  department  of  Mining  and  Metallurgy  was  similarly 
created  exactly  a  year  later. 

The  national  military  academy  at  West  Point  was  still 
the  chief  school  in  this  country  for  the  training  of 
engineers.  It  was,  therefore,  natural  that  the  regents 
should  see  in  the  detail  of  an  army  officer,  provided  for 
by  the  Morrill  Act,  an  opportunity  to  establish,  with- 
out expense  for  instruction,  the  long  projected  engineer- 
ing course.  At  first  conception,  the  course  in  Civil  Engi- 
neering was  rather  closely  incorporated  with  the  required 
military  training  of  the  university.  Under  the  first 
commandant,  Col.  W.  R.  Pease  (1867-69),  who  bore  the 
title  of  Professor  of  Military  Engineering  and  Tactics, 
a  four  years'  course  was  laid  out,  wherein  Military 
Science  was  introduced  into  the  junior,  and  Civil  Engi- 
neering into  the  senior  year.  It  was  elective  for  students 
who  were  proficient  in  the  higher  mathematics.     The 


184  WISCONSIN 

course  was  definitely  thought  of  as  a  school  for  officers, — 
its  main  outlines,  no  doubt,  suggested  by  the  West  Point 
plan.  It  was  soon  perceived,  however,  that  in  compliance 
with  the  requirements  of  the  Morrill  Act,  more  weight 
had  been  given  to  the  military  idea,  throughout  the  uni- 
versity, than  the  traffic  would  bear.  Legislation  was 
secured  which  enabled  the  regents  to  confine  the  require- 
ment of  military  drill  to  the  freshman  and  sophomore 
years.  Soon  afterward,  the  course  in  Civil  Engineering 
was  established  as  an  independent  department.  Under 
Col.  Walter  S.  Franklin  (1869-70)  an  outline  of  engi- 
neering studies  occupying  the  junior  and  senior  years 
was  definitely  set  forth  and  work  was  actually  started, 
two  students,  who  began  at  this  time,  finishing  with  the 
degree  in  course  under  Major  Nicodemus,  in  1871.  But 
their  experience  with  the  two  preceding  commandants 
had  convinced  the  regents  that,  so  long  as  it  remained 
dependent  upon  army  detail,  permanency  could  not  be 
secured  in  this  department.  Accordingly,  Major  Wm. 
J.  L.  Nicodemus,  who  retired  from  the  army  before 
coming  to  Wisconsin,  was  in  January,  1871,  elected  to 
the  professorship  of  Military  Science  and  Civil  Engineer- 
ing on  the  same  terms,  as  to  tenure  and  salary,  as  other 
members  of  the  faculty.  He  proved  energetic  and  com- 
petent and  immediately  organized  a  full  course  of  study 
in  Civil  Engineering,  covering  the  junior  and  senior 
years  of  the  College  of  Arts.  The  autumn  of  1872  found 
five  students  enrolled  in  the  new  course,  of  whom  three, 
the  first  regular  class  in  engineering,  graduated  in  1873 ; 
one  transferred  to  law,  while  one,  Allan  D.  Conover,  who 
succeeded  to  the  professorship  upon  the  death  of  Nico- 
demus, five  years  afterward,  graduated  in  1874.  The 
hard  times  which  now  prevailed  and  especially  the  dis- 
organization of  industry  through  the  panic  of  '73  doubt- 


THE  NEW  ERA  185 

less  retarded  the  growth  of  the  department,  but  here- 
after there  was  no  year  without  its  small  complement  of 
students  in  engineering. 

Irving,  more  signally  than  any  other  of  Chadbourne's 
appointees,  among  whom  he  was  the  youngest  and  the 
most  exceptional,  belonged  to  the  new  era.  His  service, 
less  long  than  illustrious,  falls  mainly  within  the  limits 
of  the  next  chapter ;  but  the  beginnings  of  his  influence 
were  felt  in  the  formative  period  with  which  we  are  now 
concerned.  Only  twenty-three  years  of  age  when  he 
joined  the  faculty,  he  had  already  completed  three  years 
of  graduate  study  in  the  new  School  of  Mines,  at 
Columbia  University,  and  had  followed  them  with  a 
year  of  practical  work.  At  his  demand,  a  laboratory, 
the  most  adequate  the  university  had  yet  seen,  was  fitted 
up  in  the  north  basement  of  University  Hall,  and  he 
began  instruction  at  the  opening  of  the  winter  term, 
December  7,  1870.  The  department  of  Mining  and 
Metallurgy  was  established  the  following  June.  Two 
students  joined  this  course  the  following  autumn  and 
were  carried  on  for  an  additional  year  of  advanced  work, 
though  the  distinctive  degree  of  this  department  was 
first  conferred  in  1876.  Irving  was  seldom  without  ad- 
vanced students,  usually  few,  usually  able,  and  some  of 
them  went  far.  His  work,  whether  in  teaching  or  re- 
search, had  a  firmness  of  quality, — enthusiastically 
arduous,  confidently  competent,  yet  totally  devoid  of 
pretentiousness, — which  was  serviceable  to  the  whole  in- 
stitution. Irving 's  powerful  work  on  the  scientific  side 
was  balanced,  in  behalf  of  the  humanities,  by  the  sub- 
stantial and  distinguished  work  of  W.  F.  Allen  in  Latin 
and  History  which  would  call  for  more  extended  notice 
here,  were  it  not  reserved  for  mention  in  another  con- 
nection. 


186  WISCONSIN 

It  was  due  in  large  part  to  the  effectiveness  of  its 
faculty  that  the  university  was  carried  without  loss  of 
momentum  through  the  administrative  vicissitudes  of 
the  early  seventies.  After  Chadbourne  left,  the  routine 
of  administration  remained  for  a  year  in  the  ever-faith- 
ful hands  of  Professor  Sterling,  when  the  regents  called 
to  the  presidency  Dr.  John  H.  Twombly  of  Massachu- 
setts. They  congratulated  themselves  that  they  had 
placed  at  the  head  of  the  university  a  man  who  was 
above  all,  "eminently  practical."  The  evidence  of  this 
quality  lay  in  Dr.  Twombly 's  previous  success  as  a 
money-raiser  for  educational  enterprises  in  the  East. 
Unfortunately  it  was  soon  apparent  that  his  personal 
qualities  were  not  of  a  cast  to  afford  him  anything  be- 
yond official  influence  over  the  faculty.  The  new  presi- 
dent proved  to  be  a  large-boned  evangelical  of  a  pushing 
type,  of  insignificant  scholarship,  and  without  social 
delicacy.  His  authority  was  resented  by  the  faculty  in 
a  mixture  of  humorous  amusement  and  irritation.  He 
has  been  off-handedly  characterized  by  one  of  them  as 
"the  biggest  humbug  that  ever  struck  the  institution." 
This  is  a  trifle  reckless.  Dr.  Twombly  seems  to  have 
been  a  sincere  man  of  much  religious  and  denominational 
zeal,  strong  practical  energy,  and  slight  culture.  He  was 
a  "humbug"  only  in  the  sense  that  he  was,  according 
to  faculty  standards,  educationally  meretricious.  The 
regents  soon  awoke  to  their  mistake,  but  it  was  not  until 
January,  1874,  after  a  contest  with  certain  denomina- 
tional forces  in  the  state  had  afforded  them  a  bitter  proof 
of  his  "practical"  abilities,  that  they  succeeded  in  secur- 
ing his  resignation.  The  period  between  Chadbourne 's 
departure  and  the  arrival  of  Bascom  may  be  regarded, 
then,  as  an  administrative  hiatus.  Yet  the  institution 
did  not  stand  still.    The  wise  favor  of  the  state  officers 


THE  NEW  ERA  187 

and  the  youthful  spirits  and  courage  of  the  faculty,  each 
member  of  which  was  alive  and  aggressive  for  his  depart- 
ment, kept  things  on  the  move.  It  was  a  very  animated 
group  of  young  teachers  to  which  Bascom  came  in  the 
spring  of  1874. 

Coeducation  was  an  issue  throughout  these  years. 
Public  opinion  was  probably  represented  fairly  in  the 
original  provision  of  the  reorganization  act,  that  all 
departments  of  the  university  should  be  "open  alike  to 
male  and  female  students."  At  the  beginning,  senti- 
ment on  the  subject  was  chiefly  concerned  with  securing 
to  the  women  equivalent  opportunities  with  the  men, 
and  no  serious  obstacle  had  been  raised  against  the  modi- 
fication of  the  law  upon  which  Chadbourne  had  condi- 
tioned his  acceptance.  But  year  by  year,  as  the  scholar- 
ship of  the  women  took  a  higher  range,  the  feeling  in- 
creased that  their  privileges  would  never  be  equal  to 
those  of  men  unless  they  were  admitted  without  distinc- 
tion to  the  same  exercises  and  placed  in  all  particulars 
on  the  same  footing.  So  long  as  women  recited  sepa- 
rately and  were  admitted  on  sufferance  to  university 
lectures,  though  their  privileges  were  nominally  the 
same,  practically  they  were  not.  Thus  a  sentiment  de- 
veloped which  grew  each  year  more  lively,  particularly 
among  the  university  women  themselves,  in  favor  of  their 
right  to  enjoy  not  only  equivalent  privileges  with  the 
men,  but  the  same  privileges  and  in  company  with  them. 
This  more  or  less  abstract  sentiment,  which  had  never- 
theless a  practical  basis,  combined  with  economic  neces- 
sity to  bring  about,  in  the  end,  complete  coeducation, 
and,  down  to  the  present  day,  has  defeated  all  projects 
of  enforced  segregation,  except  in  purely  social  con- 
cerns. 

During    Chadbourne 's    first    year    the    style    of    the 


188  WISCONSIN 

woman's  division  of  the  university  was  changed  from 
' '  Normal  Department "  to  "  Female  College. ' '  The  state- 
ment sometimes  made,  that  Chadbourne  "prescribed  for 
them  an  inferior  three  years'  course  of  study"  is,  how- 
ever, false.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  course  of  study  was 
at  once  revised  and  extended  to  occupy  four  years.  One 
is  capable  of  suspecting,  nevertheless,  that  not  only  the 
adoption  of  the  obtrusively  unambiguous  style  (already 
resented  by  many  of  those  so  distinguished  as  a  mark  of 
obloquy),  but  likewise  the  extension  of  the  course  was 
a  part  of  Chadbourne 's  programme  for  taking  care  of  the 
women  within  their  own  precinct  and  thus  protecting  the 
integrity  of  the  university  proper  (that  is  to  say,  male), 
against  intrusions  by  the  opposite  sex.  The  separate- 
ness  of  the  two  institutions  was  accentuated  by  such 
trivial,  and  illogical,  expedients  as  that  of  printing  the 
names  of  the  women  students  in  a  separate  part  of  the 
catalogue  from  the  rest  of  the  university,  a  practice 
which  was  out  of  harmony  with  the  arrangement  of  the 
catalogue  in  other  particulars.  And  when,  in  1869,  on 
resolution  of  the  board  of  regents,  the  degrees  for 
women  were  made  "the  same  as  those  conferred  upon 
male  students,  provided  the  same  courses  of  study  [were] 
satisfactorily  completed,"  and  the  degree  of  Ph.B.  was 
conferred  upon  six  women,  they  were  granted  the  special 
privilege  of  independent  graduation  exercises  on  the 
afternoon  before  Commencement. 

After  Chadbourne 's  departure,  the  restrictions  im- 
posed by  his  authority  rapidly  broke  down.  Women 
were  at  once  admitted  as  a  matter  of  convenience  to 
some  of  the  recitations,  and  this  state  of  affairs  was 
legalized  by  the  regents  at  their  January  meeting.  Co- 
education was  warmly  discussed  in  all  quarters,  through- 
out this  year :  by  the  students  in  their  debating  societies 


00 


3 


THE  NEW  ERA  189 

and  in  the  columns  of  the  University  Press;  by  the  board 
of  visitors  in  their  annual  report ;  by  the  faculty  and 
regents.  Shortly  after  the  arrival  of  President  Twombly, 
a  joint  conference  of  faculty  and  regents  met  at  his 
house  to  discuss  the  question.  Popular  interest  was  now 
actively  aroused  in  favor  of  complete  coeducation.  At 
the  dedication  of  the  new  Ladies  Hall,  December  20, 
1871,  the  feeling  ran  entirely  in  this  direction ;  Governor 
Fairchild's  sentiment,  "regardless  of  sex,  may  the  best 
scholar  win!"  was  greeted  with  applause.  The  board  of 
visitors  had,  this  year,  gone  so  far  as  to  recommend  the 
abolition  of  the  Female  College ;  but  the  regents  were  not 
yet  prepared  to  take  this  step,  preferring  to  follow  "a 
conservative  course,  midway  between  the  theories  of 
those  who  would  ride  a  hobby  to  personal  popularity  and 
that  of  fogyism  which  yields  nothing  to  the  demands  of 
a  growing  public  opinion." 

Evidently,  by  this  time,  in  Wisconsin  at  least,  there 
was  no  martyrdom  involved  in  championing  the  cause  of 
coeducation.  For  the  year  1871-72,  the  course  of  study 
in  the  Female  College  was  made  "the  same  as  that  of  the 
College  of  Arts,"  with  the  substitutions  allowed  of 
Rhetoric  and  English  Literature  for  Agriculture,  Meteor- 
ology, and  Calculus,  of  German  Literature  for  Analytical 
Chemistry,  and  of  Chaucer  for  Mineralogy,  in  the  sopho- 
more, junior,  and  senior  years,  respectively.  The  year 
following,  five  women  were  classified  in  the  regular 
courses  of  the  College  of  Letters  and,  the  year  after  that, 
the  Female  College,  as  a  scholastic  division  of  the  uni- 
versity entirely  disappeared.  Bascom's  second  Report 
announced  that  the  young  women  had  been  put,  during 
the  past  year  (1874-75),  "in  all  respects  on  precisely  the 
same  footing  in  the  university  with  the  young  men." 
Students  were  now  classified  according  to  their  courses 


190  WISCONSIN 

of  study,  regardless  of  sex ;  men  and  women  appeared 
together  upon  the  Commencement  programme;  and  the 
"Lewis  prize"  for  the  best  Commencement  essay,  now 
first  awarded,  was  won  by  Fannie  West  of  the  class  of 
'75.    So  spoils  crowned  the  victory. 


VIII 
JOHN  BASCOM 

So  far  the  university  had  made  its  way  amid  a  jostle 
of  influences  not  so  much  inhospitable  as  incoherent. 
The  ferment  of  public  opinion  which  in  times  of  mal- 
adjustment had  taken  the  character  of  animosity  was, 
after  all,  more  favorable  than  indifference  to  the  ultimate 
success  of  the  institution.  As  an  instrument  of  general 
culture,  the  people  had  been  slow  to  accept  the  univer- 
sity; as  a  mere  rival  of  the  sectarian  college,  they  had 
even  bitterly  resented  it.  They  were  not  very  clear  as 
to  what  they  wanted ;  but  they  knew  they  wanted  some- 
thing different  and  new,  something  responsive  to  their 
need,  something  which  they  called  "practical."  And 
though  this  might  be  meant  by  many  in  a  low  and  a 
narrow  sense,  many  were  prepared  to  embrace  it  in  a 
broader,  higher  one,  provided  it  could  be  shown  to  them, 
not  as  a  theory,  or  a  sham,  but  as  a  fact.  The  time  was 
ripe  for  an  individual  of  power  who,  infusing  intensity 
and  distinction  into  the  academic  temper  of  the  insti- 
tution, might  simultaneously  and  by  that  very  act, 
clarify  the  popular  will  and  transfuse  it  with  purer 
hopes.    John  Bascom  proved  to  be  the  appointed  spirit. 

It  is  conceivable  that  this  work  could  have  been  accom- 
plished by  a  mighty  administrator,  or  by  a  magnetic 
leader  of  men,  or  by  a  transcendent  scholar.  Bascom  was 
none  of  these.  He  was,  however,  a  great  man,  and  he 
was,  preeminently,  "a  great  teacher."  And  this  is  the 
significance  of  the  Bascom  legend.    The  progress  of  the 

191 


192  WISCONSIN 

university  during  this  period  lies  primarily  in  the  prov- 
ince of  the  teacher.  It  is  mainly  from  this  angle  that  the 
history  of  the  ensuing  decade  and  a  half  deserves  con- 
sideration. It  is  mainly  for  this  reason  that  the  period 
is  central  to  the  whole  cycle  of  the  university 's  evolution. 
On  the  same  day  (January  21,  1874)  that  the  regents 
had  painfully  wrung  from  President  Twombly  his  letter 
of  resignation,  they  unanimously  elected  as  his  successor, 
Professor  John  Bascom  of  Williams  College.  This  ap- 
pointment may  be  said  to  have  crowned  the  series  of  Paul 
Chadbourne's  nominations  to  the  Wisconsin  faculty.  In 
anticipation  of  the  vacancy,  Regent  Hamilton  H.  Gray 
had  been  sent  on  a  scouting  expedition  to  the  East  and, 
in  the  course  of  it,  had  interviewed  Chadbourne,  now 
president  of  Williams  College.  Chadbourne  recom- 
mended Bascom.  It  has  been  intimated,  in  print,  that 
the  former  may  not  have  been  sorry  to  be  relieved  of 
a  difficult  element  in  his  own  faculty.  Bascom  could  not 
be  considered  negligible  when  the  question  arose  as  to 
who  should  follow  Mark  Hopkins  in  the  Williams  presi- 
dency. But  to  his  candidacy,  his  want  of  sympathy  with 
the  Hopkins  philosophic  tradition  was  an  even  more 
serious  obstacle  than  his  undisguised  departure  from 
strict  theological  orthodoxy,  a  peculiarity  wherein  he 
differed  radically,  both  from  Chadbourne  and  from 
President  Hopkins,  who  practically  named  his  own  suc- 
cessor. Bascom 's  formidableness  from  Chadbourne's 
point  of  view  may  be  divined  from  the  oft-repeated 
remark  of  a  member  of  the  Williams  faculty,  when 
approached  by  President  Hopkins  on  the  subject  of  the 
succession,  that  "John  Bascom  could  put  twenty  Chad- 
bournes  in  his  breeches  pocket  and  walk  off  and  not  know 
it."  But  if  an  imputation  of  motives  concerns  us  at 
all,  it  is  far  pleasanter  and  equally  warrantable  to  see 


JOHN  BASCOM  193 

in  Chadbourne's  recommending  of  Bascom  at  once  an 
act  of  magnanimity  toward  a  rival  and  a  lingering  in- 
terest in  the  welfare  of  the  institution  he  had  recently 
served,  upon  which,  as  time  would  demonstrate,  he  now 
conferred  a  last  and  a  lasting  benefit.  The  consciousness 
that  his  advanced  opinions  were  making  his  position  at 
Williams  increasingly  difficult  made  Bascom  the  more 
willing  to  accept  the  new  outlet  for  his  energies. 

President  Bascom  was  elected  on  the  understanding 
that  his  duties  should  begin  with  the  autumn  term  of 
1874;  but  recognizing  an  exigency,  he  secured  his  re- 
lease from  Williams  and  without  waiting  to  transfer  his 
family,  came  on  alone  in  the  early  spring,  took  up  his 
residence  for  the  time  being  with  Professor  Sterling  at 
the  foot  of  the  campus,  and  immediately  "put  his  hand 
to  the  plow."  Thus  the  class  of  1874  was  the  first  of 
fourteen  who,  as  seniors,  enjoyed  his  instruction  in  the 
classroom  and  listened  to  his  parting  admonitions  at 
Commencement.  The  class  of  '90  was  the  last,  as 
freshmen,  to  be  aware  of  his  living  presence  "on  the 
hill." 

Contemporary  records  indicate  that  the  first  impres- 
sions of  Bascom  were  favorable  but  not  enthusiastic.  His 
reputation  as  a  writer  and  teacher  had  preceded  him  and 
commanded  respect,  and  he  was  seen  at  once  to  be  com- 
petent. He  was  not  one  to  inspire  immediately,  nor 
ever,  save  in  an  intimate  few,  a  warm  personal  attach- 
ment. Bascom 's  influence  lay  chiefly  in  another  region 
than  that  of  the  personal  affections.  When  it  is  said, 
therefore,  that  he  came  to  wield  an  unprecedented  per- 
sonal influence,  this  should  not  be  confounded  with 
popularity.  As  to  his  amiability  there  will  be  found 
much  difference  of  opinion ;  very  little  as  to  his  effective- 
ness.   An  influence  so  important  and  of  a  character  so 


194  WISCONSIN 

unusual  suggests  the  propriety  of  rather  full  information 
concerning  the  man  who  wiefded  it. 

John  Bascom  was  born  in  1827,  by  chance  in  Genoa, 
New  York,  for  his  ancestors  on  both  sides  had  been  New 
England  Puritans,  many  of  them  clergymen  and  men 
of  a  very  positive  temper.  He  was  "the  son  of  a 
minister,  the  youngest  child,  the  only  son,  and  the  son 
of  a  widow."  His  early  surroundings  were  those  of 
rustic  poverty.  The  second  of  three  sisters,  a  woman 
of  uncommon  force  and  ambition,  "brought  the  family 
through  the  wilderness,"  provided  the  opportunities  of 
early  education,  and  furnished  the  means  for  his  four 
years  at  the  college  of  his  father  and  uncles.  Perry  of 
Williams,  who  was  with  him  in  college  and  later  his 
most  intimate  friend,  has  left  this  careful  picture  of 
Bascom  as  a  college  student : 

"Six  feet  tall,  as  straight  as  an  arrow,  with  sandy  hair 
and  complexion,  a  pronounced  Roman  nose  springing 
from  between  eyes  always  bright  though  usually  quiet, 
the  whole  countenance  and  bearing,  whether  on  the 
wicket-field  or  in  the  recitation  room,  indicating  a  restful 
self-possession  and  an  easy  mastery  over  all  that  be- 
longed to  him,  with  a  corresponding  indisposition  to 
meddle  with  anything  that  belonged  to  anybody  else.  He 
seemed  to  claim  nothing  from  anybody,  while  manifest- 
ing indirectly  an  unmistakable  purpose  to  defend  all  that 
was  his  own.  .  .  .  His  face  in  college  and  ever  afterward 
indicated  a  remarkable  purity  as  well  as  elevation  of 
thought." 

Besides  its  wealth  of  physical  detail,  this  passage  is 
valuable  for  its  notice  of  a  striking  quality  of  Bascom 's 
bearing  which  characterized  him  in  mature  life.  Though 
distinct  from  coldness,  those  who  knew  him  less  than  very 
well  easily  mistook  it  for  that.  Bascom  may  have  been 
coming  at  the  same  characteristic,  from  within,  when 


JOHN  BASCOM  195 

he  wrote  at  the  end  of  life,  "Though  possessed  of  inde- 
pendent and  uncompromising  moral  convictions,  I  have 
always  been  exceedingly  shy,  and  have  suffered  deeply 
from  every  form  of  personal  collision."  And  this,  of 
religious  intercourse,  has  a  similar  bearing:  "When  one 
has  shut  the  door  into  one's  own  mind,  it  must  remain 
shut  till  one  chooses  to  open  it  again.  .  .  .  The  most 
impenetrable  region,  the  most  complete  retirement,  are 
those  of  individual,  spiritual  life." 

Intellectually,  Bascom  most  astonished  his  college  com- 
petitors through  his  masterful  handling  of  the  mathe- 
matics and,  later,  by  a  similar  gift  for  abstract  specula- 
tion. By  his  own  account,  he  was  an  indifferent  student 
of  languages,  a  fact  which  he  attributed,  first,  to  a  poor 
memory  for  words  and  imperfect  natural  sensibility  to 
their  connotation,  and  second,  to  bad  teaching.  He  loved 
nature  and,  during  his  college  days,  formed  a  permanent 
attachment  for  mountainous  scenery.  Nature,  especially 
the  mountains,  was  his  chief  source  of  refreshment 
through  life.  Though  he  did  not  despise  the  recreation 
to  be  found  in  human  society,  he  confessed  that  contact 
with  men  tended  to  weary  him.  In  his  character,  a 
principle  of  intense  personal  ambition  was  met  and 
poised  by  an  equivalent  capacity  for  sacrifice.  He  was 
in  conduct  unspotted  and  he  was  deeply  religious.  Such 
a  character  might  be  wrong-headed  at  times;  it  could 
hardly  be  wrong-minded.  By  no  single  gift  of  intellect 
or  attribute  of  character,  nor  by  either  singly,  but  rather 
by  a  communication  of  height  and  power  Bascom  pro- 
duced an  extraordinary  impression  on  his  early  fellows. 
Of  this  impression,  Perry  wrote : 

"Not  only  was  there  no  other  in  his  class  could  stand 
any  sustained  comparison  with  him  in  silent  power  and 
positive  influence,  but  there  was  no  student  in  college 


196  WISCONSIN 

during  his  time  who  could  do  this,  and  it  may  be  fairly 
questioned  if  there  were  ever  a  student  here  maintaining 
during  four  years  such  an  easy  and  acknowledged 
supremacy  in  all  good  things  above  all  his  compeers." 

Most  outside  and  many  inner  forces  impelled  young 
Bascom  to  the  ministry;  but  his  native  disposition  to 
resist  encroachments  upon  his  voluntary  possession  of 
self  led  him,  at  first,  to  seek  his  career  in  the  law.  It 
required  but  eight  months  in  a  lawyer's  office  to  con- 
vince him  that  the  pragmatism  of  this  profession  was 
too  much  of  the  earth  to  invite  his  soul,  and  he  yielded 
to  the  ancestral  call.  At  Auburn  Theological  Seminary 
he  came  under  the  teaching  of  L.  P.  Hickok,  to  whom  he 
considered  himself  "more  indebted  than  to  any  other 
instructor."  He  had  sat  under  Mark  Hopkins  at 
"Williams ;  but  there  had  been  too  little  speculative  daring 
in  that  teaching,  and  too  indolent  an  explorativeness  of 
scholarship  to  permanently  interest  him.  Hickok  intro- 
duced him  to  the  higher  ranges  of  speculative  philosophy. 
This  teacher  was  an  uncompromising  intuitionalist,  con- 
versant with  German  transcendental  thought.  An  in- 
terest in  science  and  the  empirical  philosophy  related  to 
it  soon  led  Bascom  to  modify  his  acceptance  of  Hickok 's 
teaching  and  started  him  upon  the  philosophical  quest 
of  his  life,  viz.,  the  reconciliation  of  these  two  forms  of 
thought.  He  finished  his  theological  training  at  Andover 
six  years  after  leaving  college,  having  meanwhile,  be- 
sides the  time  given  to  law,  spent  one  year  in  academy 
teaching  and  parts  of  two  years  as  a  tutor  at  Williams. 
Through  an  obstinate  attempt  to  offset  his  insecurity  in 
the  classical  tongues  by  an  absolute  mastery  of  Hebrew, 
he  had  permanently  injured  his  eyes.  This  calamity 
undoubtedly  curbed  in  some  measure  the  impetuosity  of 
his  outward  ambitions  and  tended  to  confirm  the  reflec- 


JOHN  BASCOM  197 

tive  bent  and  the  devotional  strain  already  so  strong  in 
him.  At  this  point  he  accepted,  with  much  misgiving, 
the  professorship  of  Rhetoric  and  Oratory  at  his  old 
college. 

At  the  time  he  enters  our  history  Bascom  was  ap- 
proaching forty-seven  years  of  age  and  had  spent  nine- 
teen years  in  the  position  just  mentioned.  It  was  not 
the  field  in  which  he  would  have  chosen  to  teach ;  almost 
any  other  would  have  been  more  directly  in  the  line  of 
his  special  strength  and  preparation.  Traditionally,  the 
work  of  this  department  involved  almost  exclusively  the 
overlooking  (in  both  senses)  of  the  immature  efforts  of 
college  students  in  writing  and  oratory.  Bascom  con- 
trived, in  course  of  time,  to  make  himself  felt  in  it.  He 
introduced  the  study  of  ^Esthetics  and  of  English  Litera- 
ture and  he  undertook  to  import  some  philosophy  into 
all  the  subjects  taught.  His  first  book,  curiously  enough, 
had  been  a  brief  textbook  on  Political  Economy.  This 
had  been  followed  at  intervals  of  three  years  by  two 
books  directly  related  to  his  teaching,  an  Esthetics  and 
a  Philosophy  of  Rhetoric.  Simultaneously  his  interest 
in  philosophy  continued.  Numerous  articles  and  re- 
views published  during  these  years  were  all  outside  the 
field  of  his  teaching,  and  most  of  them  were  on  subjects 
that  foreshadowed  his  book  on  The  Principles  of  Psy- 
chology, published  in  1869.  Two  years  later,  a  series 
of  lectures  at  the  Lowell  Institute  was  brought  out  in  a 
volume  called  Science,  Philosophy  and  Religion.  A  sec- 
ond series  of  lectures  at  the  Lowell  Institute  produced 
the  volume  entitled,  Philosophy  of  English  Literature, 
published  the  year  he  came  to  Wisconsin.  It  may  be 
regarded  as  his  farewell  to  the  subject.  This  book  con- 
tains some  large  views  and  interesting  comment ;  but  its 
sympathies  are  embarrassed  by  puritanical  boundaries 


198  WISCONSIN 

and,  on  the  whole,  the  historian  and  the  litterateur  are 
freely  swallowed  by  the  moralist.  The  concluding  chap- 
ter is  appropriated  to  a  review  of  English  formal  philos- 
ophy from  Hobbes  to  Spencer.  After  reading  this  book, 
no  one  can  be  in  doubt  that  the  change  in  the  field  of 
his  teaching  was  to  Bascom  a  welcome  feature  of  his 
transfer  to  Wisconsin. 

During  the  thirteen  years  at  Wisconsin,  Bascom  pub- 
lished eight  books  at  intervals  of  about  two  years,  except 
that  from  1878  to  1881,  inclusive,  he  brought  out  a  book 
a  year.  Of  these  publications,  Ethics,  Natural  Theology, 
and  Science  of  Mind,  a  revision  of  the  earlier  Psychology, 
were  intended  for  textbooks,  and  arose  directly  out  of 
his  teaching.  A  Philosophy  of  Religion,  Growth  and 
Grades  of  Intelligence,  and  Problems  of  Philosophy  were 
elaborations  of  special  points  in  his  philosophy.  The 
Words  of  Christ  aimed  to  disclose  "the  overwhelming 
rational  element  in  the  instructions  of  our  Lord." 
Sociology  (1887)  indicated  the  direction  in  which  his 
application  of  philosophy  and  ethics  was  swinging 
toward  the  end  of  his  stay  at  Wisconsin.  During  the 
same  period  he  produced  a  large  number  of  sermons, 
addresses,  and  articles  on  religious,  philosophical,  edu- 
cational, and  sociological  topics.  That  this,  the  section 
of  his  life  which  was  most  crowded  with  administrative 
duties,  was  also  that  of  most  prolific  authorship  is  a  re- 
minder that  Bascom  brought  to  Wisconsin  the  central 
strength  of  his  maturity. 

About  the  time  Bascom  left  Wisconsin  the  chair  of 
Philosophy  at  Williams  became  vacant,  but  he  was  not 
elected.  After  leaving  Wisconsin,  he  returned  to  Wil- 
liamstown,  however,  and  there  continued  his  work  as 
a  teacher,  at  first  as  a  special  lecturer,  later  as  a  member 
of  the  faculty.    His  productiveness  continued  with  little 


JOHN  BASCOM  199 

sign  of  abatement  for  upwards  of  a  dozen  years,  each 
biennium  having  a  new  volume  to  show.  Even  after  the 
books  became  less  frequent,  the  flood  of  articles  con- 
tinued to  the  end  of  his  life.  His  death  (October  2, 
1911)  was  followed  by  two  posthumous  volumes,  a  col- 
lection of  Sermons  and  Addresses  (1913)  and  an  auto- 
biography, Things  Learned  by  Living  (1913). 

Bascom's  writings,  though  not  without  interest  in 
themselves,  are  chiefly  of  interest  as  measures  of  the 
man.  He  wrote  too  much  and  too  broadly,  in  too  many 
fields,  to  gain  the  reward  of  finality  in  any.  Few  of  his 
books  enjoyed  a  wide  circulation;  they  had  their  in- 
fluence in  a  special  limited  group,  not  of  specialists,  but 
of  advanced  thinkers.  Above  all,  they  were  indicative 
of  his  range  and  variety  of  interests,  the  intensity  of  his 
convictions,  and  the  abounding  energy  of  his  mind. 
Admirers  of  the  man  seem  to  have  been  somewhat  dis- 
appointed, always,  in  his  books.  Though  he  wrote  so 
much,  his  gifts  were  not  primarily  literary.  Character, 
action,  even  speech  conveyed  him  more  satisfactorily 
than  the  written  word.  There  is  little  liveliness  or 
warmth  in  his  writing.  The  reader  is  chilled  by  a  specu- 
lative matter-of-factness  in  dealing  with  human  relations 
and  activities  which  customarily  inspire  some  color  of 
sentiment  or  humor.  It  is  a  quality  more  due  to  intel- 
lectual detachment  and  singleness  of  purpose  possibly, 
than  to  a  fundamental  want  of  human  kindness; 
but  the  reader  accustomed  to  the  more  genial  habit 
of  general  literature  is  unlikely  to  make  this  allow- 
ance. 

Nor  was  this,  quite,  a  limitation  of  the  writer  only; 
the  same  quality  of  detachment  was  felt  by  many  in 
personal  dealings  with  the  man.  It  was  doubtless  one 
point  in  his  greatness  and  one  secret  of  his  impressive- 


200  WISCONSIN 

ness;  it  was,  also,  a  source  of  some  of  his  difficulties. 
Men  of  affairs  whose  sense  of  life  was  largely  instinctive, 
empirical,  and  personal,  were  apt  to  feel  him  unsympa- 
thetic and  set  him  down  for  a  "crank."  His  curt, 
incisive  statement  of  principles,  correlative  flashings  of 
a  thoughtfulness  beyond  their  range,  seemed  dogmatic; 
his  bare  and  sinewy  programmes  of  action  appeared  im- 
patient and  arbitrary;  his  inflexibility,  where  moral 
issues  cut  counter  to  the  expedient  or  politic,  struck 
them  as  self-righteous  and  obstinate.  With  such  men, 
he  frequently  found  difficulty  in  working  on  terms  of 
good  understanding.  To  those  who  understood  him, 
however,  these  discomforts  were  hardly  even  the  defects 
of  his  qualities ;  they  were  a  part  of  the  stimulating  con- 
tact with  a  mind  and  nature  of  singular  sweep,  unself- 
ishness, and  candor. 

Throughout  Bascom's  large  volume  of  writing,  two 
increasing  purposes  run:  first,  for  the  individual,  a 
reconciliation  of  evolution  with  the  essentials  of  re- 
ligious belief,  making  rational  knowledge  the  means  of 
a  larger  faith  and  a  closer  walk  with  God;  second,  the 
pushing  home  of  speculative  ethics  toward  applications 
to  the  actual  problems  of  society  and  government.  In 
neither  field  of  thought  would  professionals  credit  him 
with  absolute  creative  originality.  His  fruitfulness  for 
the  world  lay  not  in  his  discoveries  as  a  thinker,  but  in 
his  influence  as  a  teacher  and  a  leader  of  teachers.  And 
even  here  his  influence  was  rather  massive  than  specific ; 
he  lifted  the  ethical  and  philosophic  temper  of  a  genera- 
tion of  students,  but  he  produced  no  scholars  in  his 
particular  subject,  in  the  sense  that  Allen  produced  a 
Turner  and  Irving  a  Van  Hise.  Yet  his  scholarship  was 
sufficiently  near  the  creative  level  to  elevate  greatly  the 
plane  of  his  teaching  and  intensify  the  vitality  of  his 


JOHN  BASCOM  201 

leadership.  Loftiness  of  contemplation,  freedom  and 
fecundity  of  thought,  definiteness  of  conviction  and 
resoluteness  of  purpose,  seriousness  and  courage,  both 
intellectual  and  ethical,  stamp  his  work  as  that  of  no 
mere  carpenter  of  textbooks  or  peddler  of  popular 
dogmas. 

Bascom  may  be  described,  by  way  of  summary,  as  in 
doctrine  a  philosophical  progressive  and  in  action  a 
practical  idealist.  In  the  universal  Law  of  Growth 
his  philosophy  found  its  final  resolvent,  that  satisfaction 
of  the  spirit  for  which  the  individual  yearns,  that  trend 
toward  ultimate  perfection  and  abstract  justice  by  which 
society  prospers.  He  was  a  practical  idealist  because 
he  united  in  himself,  in  an  uncommon  degree  and  equal- 
ness  of  force,  love  and  comprehension  of  truth  and  the 
will  and  capacity  to  make  the  truth  prevail.  Though 
by  no  means  a  faultless  leader,  he  had  this  great  quality 
of  prophetic  leadership,  that  his  vision  of  the  goal  did 
not  unnerve  the  immediate  step,  nor  did  concern  for 
the  immediate  step  blear  his  vision  of  the  far-off 
event. 

Despite  his  progressiveness  and  practicality,  we  seem 
to  see  here  a  man  too  remote  in  doctrine  and  austere  of 
spirit  to  become  the  prophet  of  a  materialistic  western 
commonwealth  of  the  eighties;  but  this,  to  the  credit  of 
both,  he  in  fact  became,  not  by  direct  and  popular,  but 
by  indirect  and  non-popular  influence.  Indeed,  Bascom 
never  found,  before  or  after,  so  free  and  ample  scope  for 
his  range  of  talents  as  the  Wisconsin  presidency.  It 
fell  in  the  central  working  period  of  his  life  and  it 
called  out  his  whole  personal  force.  That  he  himself 
should  have  been  almost  as  conscious  of  the  obstacles 
encountered  as  of  the  success  achieved,  was  natural; 
that  his  success  should  have  been  unqualified  and  every- 


202  WISCONSIN 

where  recognized,  was  hardly  to  be  expected;  but  it  is 
now  fully  recognized.  And  if  his  service  to  Wisconsin 
was  great,  his  reward  is  great  also,  since  what  he  there 
accomplished  seems  likely  to  prove  his  most  substantial 
claim  to  be  remembered  in  his  generation. 


Old  Library  Hall 


IX 


GROWING  UP 

Before  undertaking  to  describe  in  detail  the  progress 
of  the  university  during  Baseom  's  administration  it  may 
be  well  to  indicate  in  such  brief  terms  as  space  will 
permit,  the  general  progress  of  the  state  up  to  and  dur- 
ing this  time.  Wisconsin  when  Baseom  came  to  it  still 
retained  many  of  the  pioneer  characteristics  that  have 
been  ascribed  to  it  in  a  previous  chapter;  but  it  was 
beginning  to  outgrow  them  and  it  outgrew  them  very 
rapidly  toward  the  end  of  Baseom 's  stay.  During  the 
earlier  years,  the  state,  in  common  with  the  whole 
country,  suffered  from  the  business  depression  which 
followed  the  panic  of  1873.  With  the  resumption  of 
opecie  payments  in  1879,  there  was  a  marked  revival 
in  the  business  world,  and  the  succeeding  era  of  indus- 
trial expansion  rapidly  modified  the  character  of  the 
state  and  without  doubt  influenced  considerably  the 
development  of  the  university. 

Generally  speaking  the  material  progress  of  the  state 
was  relatively  slow  in  the  seventies,  but  accelerated 
swiftly  in  the  decade  that  followed.  Population  had 
reached  the  million  mark  in  1870,  representing  a  gain  for 
the  preceeding  ten  years  of  about  thirty-six  per  cent., 
for  the  rapid  flow  of  immigration  in  the  years  just  pre- 
ceding the  Civil  War  had  brought  the  population  of  the 
state  to  over  three-quarters  of  a  million  by  1860.  The 
gain  from  1870  to  1880  was  less  than  twenty-five  per  cent, 
and  of  this  gain  two-thirds  belonged  to  the  first  half  of 

203 


204  WISCONSIN 

the  decade.  The  change  from  1880  to  1890  was  not 
strikingly  different  as  to  pace,  but  it  was  different  in 
character,  for,  while  the  total  population  increased  but 
a  little  more  than  one-fourth,  the  urban  population 
doubled.  Thus  by  1890,  Wisconsin  had  a  population 
of  well  over  a  million  and  a  half,  of  which  one-fourth 
were  town  and  city  dwellers.  Per  capita  wealth  had 
trebled  in  the  thirty  years  since  1860.  Ranking  four- 
teenth among  the  states  in  respect  to  population  Wis- 
consin was  now  twelfth  in  the  estimated  value  of  its 
property.  The  material  wealth  of  the  state  from  forty- 
two  millions  in  1850,  had  multiplied  seven  times  by 
1860,  and  had  nearly  doubled  again  by  1870 ;  had  in- 
creased sixty  per  cent,  between  1870  and  1880  and  in 
an  equal  ratio  between  1880  and  1890.  The  absolute 
increase  in  this  decade  was  six  hundred  millions,  almost 
as  much  as  the  entire  wealth  of  the  state  in  1870. 

Another  criterion  of  economic  development  may  be 
found  in  the  growth  of  manufactures.  The  nine  millions 
of  annual  production  in  1850  had  trebled  by  1860,  nearly 
trebled  again  by  1870,  and  nearly  doubled  again,  reach- 
ing one  hundred  twenty-eight  millions,  by  1880 ;  during 
the  next  decade  there  was  an  increase  of  one  hundred 
and  twenty  millions,  bringing  the  total  annual  value 
of  manufactured  products,  in  1890,  to  two  hundred  and 
forty-eight  millions.  To  appreciate  the  activity  involved, 
however,  it  is  necessary  to  remember  both  the  high  rela- 
tive value  of  manufactured  products  in  the  earlier 
periods,  and  the  fact  that  most  of  these  products  were 
not  far  removed  from  the  raw  state, — lumber,  flour, 
leather,  and  the  like.  For  every  dollar  of  capital  in- 
vested in  manufacture  in  1850  there  was  nearly  three 
dollars'  worth  of  production,  while  in  1890,  this  relation 
was  almost  dollar  for  dollar.    {The  ratio  of  capital  in- 


GROWING  UP  203 

vested  in  manufacture  to  the  total  valuation  of  the  state 
changed  very  little  between  1870  and  1880 :  one  in  sixteen 
and  seven-tenths  against  one  in  fifteen  and  four-tenths; 
but  between  1880  and  1890  there  was  a  striking  advance 
to  one  in  seven  and  four-tenths.  Similarly  the  propor- 
tion of  hands  employed  in  manufactures  to  the  total 
population  of  the  state  changed  only  from  one  in  twenty- 
four  in  1870  to  one  in  twenty-three  in  1880;  while  by 
1890  the  proportion  had  risen  to  one  in  twelve  and  a 
fraction. 

Lest  the  industrial  significance  of  these  figures  be  mis- 
understood, it  should  be  noted  again  that  some  important 
items  included  in  the  totals  relate  still  to  but  slightly 
manufactured  products.  Particularly  during  the  eigh- 
ties, Wisconsin  was  recklessly  cashing  in  her  forests, 
crowding  Michigan  close  for  first  rank  among  the  lumber 
states  of  the  country  and  leaving  all  other  competitors 
far  behind.  By  1890,  the  annual  output  of  lumber  and 
allied  products  was  valued  at  eighty-four  millions,  one- 
third  of  the  total  manufactures  of  the  state.  The  brewing 
of  malt  liquors  from  under  two  millions  in  1870,  and 
over  six  millions  in  1880,  was  close  to  seventeen  millions 
in  1890.  Flour  and  allied  products,  on  the  other  hand, 
had  actually  decreased  from  nearly  twenty-eight,  in 
1880,  to  a  little  over  twenty-four  millions  in  1890.  The 
factory  manufacture  of  dairy  products  was  beginning 
to  develop,  increasing  in  the  decade  1880  to  1890  from 
about  a  million  and  a  half  to  about  seven  millions.  The 
development  of  the  dairy  industry,  together  with  im- 
proved facilities  for  transportation  and  the  increase  in 
value  of  the  cheap  farm  lands  which  had  been  taken  up 
by  the  early  settlers,  rapidly  augmented  the  prosperity 
of  the  agricultural  class  and  the  country  towns.  For- 
eigners of  the  second  generation  began  to  straggle  into 


206  WISCONSIN 

the  university,  slowly  during  the  seventies  but  in  in- 
creasing proportions  in  the  course  of  the  eighties.  In 
the  meantime  the  demand  for  farm  labor,  but  still  more 
the  manufacturing  industries  of  Milwaukee  and  other 
cities  and  the  lumbering  and  mining  industries  of 
northern  Wisconsin,  invited  new  waves  of  immigration. 
In  the  course  of  the  eighties  a  pronounced  social  strati- 
fication made  its  appearance. 

Numerous  factors  directly  related  to  the  university, 
combined  with  the  general  conditions  just  indicated, 
balance  the  dozen  and  one  years  under  Bascom  quite 
definitely  in  two  periods  of  almost  equal  length,  with 
the  year  1879-80  as  a  fulcrum  or  turning-point.  It  re- 
quired about  six  years  of  frugal  preparation  and  quiet 
readjustment  to  establish  the  institution  on  its  new  basis 
and  to  enable  the  president  to  make  himself  fully  felt; 
certain  fundamental  problems  were  solved  or  put  in  the 
way  of  solution,  and  there  followed,  during  the  remain- 
ing years,  a  slow  but  solid  advance  which  soon  after 
quickened  into  the  swift  development  of  the  nineties. 
During  the  earlier  period,  a  more  liberal  income  was 
secured,  together  with  three  new  buildings  and  numerous 
other  improvements  in  material  equipment ;  the  question 
of  coeducation  was  given  its  quietus ;  the  deportment  of 
the  student  body  was  raised  to  a  more  dignified  plane; 
the  course  in  law  was  amplified  from  one  year  to  two; 
cooperation  with  the  graded  schools  of  the  state  was 
strengthened  through  the  granting  of  the  state  teachers' 
certificate  to  graduates  of  the  university  and,  more 
directly,  by  the  inauguration  of  the  system  of  accredited 
high  schools;  the  preparatory  department  of  the  uni- 
versity was  discontinued,  and  the  standard  of  scholarship 
improved.  Most  of  these  achievements  became  effective 
about  1879-80,  and  the  same  period  was  signalized  by 


GROWING  UP  207 

changes  in  the  personnel  of  the  board  of  regents  and  by 
many  important  changes  in  the  make-up  of  the  faculty. 
What  we  are  accustomed  to  think  of  as  the  university 
of  John  Bascom  was  by  this  time  in  full  swing. 

The  year  Bascom  took  the  reins  at  Wisconsin  the  total 
budget  of  the  university  was  a  little  less  than  sixty 
thousand  dollars,  of  which  slightly  more  than  half  was 
for  salaries  of  the  instructional  force.  The  chief  sums 
out  of  which  this  expenditure  was  met  were  the  incomes 
of  the  two  land  funds  amounting  to  about  thirty-four 
thousand  dollars,  the  two  state  appropriations  of  1867 
and  1872  amounting  to  something  over  seventeen  thou- 
sand, and  about  nine  thousand  dollars  in  student  fees 
for  tuition  and  room  rent.  The  president  immediately 
urged  the  need  of  "a  larger  and  more  elastic  income," 
and,  as  the  ten-year  grant  of  1867  was  about  to  expire, 
the  legislature  of  1876  commuted  the  two  previous 
levies  to  "a  tax  of  one-tenth  mill  on  each  dollar  of  the 
assessed  valuation  of  the  taxable  property  of  the  state." 
This  increased  the  annual  income  about  seventy-five  per 
cent.  It  was  anticipated,  moreover,  that  a  ratio  tax, 
increasing  with  the  growing  wealth  of  the  state,  would 
automatically  provide  for  a  proportionate  expansion  of 
the  university.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  this  feature  of  the 
levy  proved  an  insufficient  measure.  In  seven  years,  the 
income  from  this  source  increased  about  three  thousand 
dollars. — a  difference  more  than  offset  by  the  shrinking 
of  the  income  from  the  productive  funds  on  account  of 
falling  interest  rates,  to  say  nothing  of  a  substantial  loss 
in  student  tuitions  through  a  subsidiary  provision  of 
the  law. 

To  meet  this  situation,  the  legislature  of  1883  (first 
biennial  session),  changed  the  rate  of  taxation  from  one- 
tenth  to  one-eighth  of  a  mill.    On  the  assessed  valuation 


208  WISCONSIN 

of  1877  the  one-tenth  mill  tax  produced  $42,359.62,  in- 
creasing the  direct  support  of  the  university  by  about 
twenty-five  thousand  dollars.  The  first  application  of 
the  one-eighth  mill  rate  (1884)  realized  $57,442.52,  an 
increase  of  about  twelve  thousand  dollars  over  the  pre- 
ceding year.  There  was  added,  in  1885,  a  special  appro- 
priation of  five  thousand  a  year  for  the  support  of 
farmers'  institutes,  and  this  sum  proving  inadequate, 
two  years  later  the  appropriation  was  raised  to  twelve 
thousand  dollars.  The  total  receipts  of  the  university 
in  Bascom's  last  year,  exclusive  of  the  building  funds, 
amounted  to  $113,601.87,  of  which  the  chief  parcels  were, 
sixty-two  thousand  dollars  derived  from  the  mill  tax, 
thirteen  thousand  from  the  appropriations  for  farmers' 
institutes,  not  quite  twenty-eight  thousand  from  the  pro- 
ductive funds,  and  about  eleven  thousand  dollars  from 
students'  tuitions,  laboratory  charges  and  the  like.  Al- 
though the  absolute  increase  between  1874  and  1887  had 
been  an  insignificant  one  in  the  light  of  modern  expendi- 
tures, it  will  be  seen  that  the  sum  annually  available  for 
the  maintenance  of  the  university  had  nearly  doubled  in 
the  thirteen  years,  a  rate  of  progress  not  greatly  out  of 
proportion  with  the  economic  development  of  the  state. 
The  expenditure  for  salaries  of  the  instructional  force 
exactly  doubled  during  this  period,  amounting  in 
1886-87  to  not  quite  sixty  thousand  dollars,  an  average 
salary  for  the  entire  faculty  of  $1461  a  year.  The  scale 
of  salaries  continued  unchanged  throughout  Bascom's 
regime,  the  normal  salary  of  a  full  professor  remaining 
where  it  had  been  set  in  1872,  at  two  thousand  dollars, 
which  was  exactly  the  salary  paid  by  Williams  College 
when  Bascom  left  it.  The  increased  expenditure  was  due 
entirely,  therefore,  to  an  increase  in  the  number  of  the 
faculty,  not  to  an  advance  in  their  salaries.    Since  the 


GROWING  UP  209 

absolute  number  of  students  in  attendance  was  but  little 
greater  at  the  end  than  at  the  beginning,  it  follows  that 
the  improvement  and  diversification  of  instruction  had 
greatly  increased  its  per  capita  cost.  To  be  exact,  the 
increase  was  from  $74.50  in  1874  to  $111.17  in  1886.1 
The  ratio  of  instructors  to  students  was,  in  1874,  one  to 
thirteen  and  six-tenths.  Almost  though  not  quite  the 
same  ratio  of  increase  would  hold  true  of  the  total 
cost  of  maintenance,  though  here  it  is  difficult  to  draw 
a  line  between  actual  maintenance  cost  and  more  or 
less  permanent  improvements.  A  minor  but  signifi- 
cant case  in  point  would  be  the  expenditure  for  the 
building  up  of  a  library.  The  year  Bascom  arrived,  the 
total  expenditure  for  library  increase  was  less  than  two 
hundred  and  fifty  dollars;  during  his  second  year  it 
approached  two  thousand,  and  thereafter  the  annual 
expenditure  for  this  object  hovered  around  fifteen  hun- 
dred dollars.  Further  amassing  of  details  is  unneces- 
sary ;  it  is  evident  that  the  increased  scale  of  expenditure 
was  entirely  due  to  the  character  of  the  instruction  that 
was  given  and  to  preparation  for  the  future.  No  one  has 
recently  accused  the  university  of  Bascom 's  day  of 
luxury  or  extravagance;  but  it  had  piquantly  demon- 
strated, in  plain  economic  terms,  the  expensiveness  of 
quality  in  higher  education ;  nor  would  very  many  ques- 
tion its  superior  desirableness  over  what  had  gone 
before. 

There  were  but  four  substantial  buildings  on  the 
campus  when  Bascom  came,  namely,  the  North  and 
South  Dormitories,  Ladies  Hall,  and  old  University 
Hall.     Of  these  the  first  three  were  used  almost  exclu- 

■  The  year  1886  is  taken  for  the  reason  that  the  salary  state- 
ment for  the  fiscal  year  ending  September  30,  1887,  comprehends 
in  part  increases  that  went  into  effect  under  Bascom's  successor 
and  contains,  in  addition,  several  errors. 


210  WISCONSIN 

sively  as  student  residences,  so  that  practically  all  the 
instruction  of  four  hundred  students  had  to  be  crowded 
into  old  Main  Hall.  With  the  development  of  the 
laboratory  sciences  this  condition  had  become  almost 
unbearable.  " Never  a  fortunate  building,"  poorly 
heated,  poorly  ventilated,  shabbily  furnished,  with  nar- 
row, draughty  passageways,  Main  Hall  had  not  improved 
with  the  years  and  now  it  was  dismally  overcrowded, 
while  the  fumes  of  Irving 's  blast  furnaces  and  the 
chlorine  and  sulphide  gases  always  exuding  from 
Daniells'  laboratory  mounted  the  staircases  and  mingled 
in  every  literary  and  philosophical  discussion.  The  im- 
mediate remedy  would  be  a  Hall  of  Science  to  which 
the  scientific  and  technical  departments  could  be  re- 
moved, greatly  to  their  own  advantage  and  to  the 
relief  of  the  remainder  of  the  university.  Such  a 
building,  Bascom,  in  his  first  report  to  the  regents,  placed 
as  the  most  imperative  material  need  of  the  university. 
Its  next  greatest  need  was  an  Assembly  Hall,  and  next, 
but  at  a  long  interval,  an  Astronomical  Observatory.  All 
three  were  secured  during  the  first  half  of  his  adminis- 
tration, and  in  three  different  ways.  Science  Hall  was 
built  by  state  appropriation  ;  each  of  the  others  by  means 
unique  in  the  history  of  the  university.  The  Observa- 
tory was  the  private  gift  of  a  citizen  of  the  state; 
Assembly,  or  as  it  was  long  called,  Library  Hall,  was 
built  out  of  the  savings  of  income. 

An  appropriation  of  eighty  thousand  dollars  for  a 
hall  of  Science  was  voted  by  the  legislature  of  1875. 
Under  the  supervision  of  a  building  committee  consisting 
of  Regents  Van  Slyke,  Keenan,  and  Chynoweth,  the 
building  was  completed  and  ready  for  occupancy  in 
June,  1877.  Exclusive  of  steam-heating,  water,  and 
machinery,  the  cost  of  construction   came  within  the 


GROWING  UP  211 

appropriation ;  these  items  brought  the  total  cost  of  the 
building  close  to  one  hundred  thousand  dollars.  It  was 
a  plain  massive  structure  of  four  stories.  The  ground 
plan  was  that  of  a  rectangle  sixty  by  one  hundred  and 
thirty-six  feet,  with  the  facade  on  the  long  side,  inter- 
sected at  the  rear  corners  by  two  wings  forty-two  feet 
wide  and  seventy-eight  feet  in  depth.  The  material  was 
local  sandstone  from  the  Stephens  quarries.  The  build- 
ing provided  ample  space  for  the  laboratories,  lecture 
rooms,  and  "studies"  of  all  the  professors  of  science,  and 
for  the  shops  and  machinery  of  the  engineering  depart- 
ment. The  entire  fourth  floor  of  one  wing  was  devoted 
to  the  University  Cabinet.  Recently  this  had  been  en- 
riched through  the  purchase  of  the  library  and  cabinet 
of  Increase  A.  Lapham,  an  early  friend  of  the  university, 
the  oldest  scientist  and  most  devoted  collector  in  the 
state.  A  special  appropriation  for  this  purpose,  of  ten 
thousand  dollars,  had  been  voted  by  the  legislature  of 
1876.  An  Art  Gallery,  forty-six  by  forty-three,  must 
have  afforded  generous  wall  space  to  the  old  masters  in 
the  possession  of  the  university;  four  landscapes,  by 
Moran,  are  said  to  have  been  of  considerable  excellence. 
On  the  whole,  for  solid  usefulness,  dignified  appearance, 
convenience,  adequacy  of  equipment,  this  building  was 
"equal  to  the  best  in  the  country,"  and,  the  regents 
delightfully  added,  Wisconsin  "must  be  satisfied  with 
nothing  else."  For  seven  years  it  was  the  capital 
showplace  of  the  university;  but  its  glory  was  of  no 
longer  duration.  "Old  Science  Hall"  was  completely 
wrecked  and  its  contents  entirely  destroyed  by  fire  on 
the  night  of  December  1,  1884. 

In  one  great  branch  of  natural  science  the  university 
was  notably  deficient.     Astronomy  had  been  taught  in 


212  WISCONSIN 

the  early  days  by  Professor  Sterling  as  a  subdivision 
of  Natural  Philosophy,  and  it  was  now  appended  to 
Physics  under  Professor  Davies;  but  the  astronomical 
apparatus  of  the  university  had  always  been  ludicrously 
inadequate;  there  was  "not  a  single  good  telescope  in 
the  entire  state."  The  deficiency  had  long  been  recog- 
nized ;  but  the  equipment  for  practical  work  in  astronomy 
was  so  expensive  and  its  utility  so  remote  that  the  state 
had  not  yet  found  the  way  to  acquire  this  mark  of  civi- 
lization. In  making  the  new  levy  for  the  university,  the 
legislature  of  1876  set  aside,  out  of  the  funds  to  be 
raised,  three  thousand  dollars  a  year  for  the  support  of 
astronomical  work  and  instruction,  on  condition  that, 
before  the  expiration  of  three  years,  a  well-equipped 
observatory  should  be  "given  to  the  university  within 
its  own  grounds  without  cost  to  the  state."  This  quaint 
"hurry-up"  to  private  generosity  was  responded  to 
within  the  year  by  ex-Governor  Cadwallader  C.  Wash- 
burn. It  is  explained  by  the  fact  that  the  legislature 
had  received  an  intimation  of  Washburn's  willingness  to 
make  this  gift  and  took  this  means  of  reassuring  the 
donor  as  to  the  conditions  under  which  it  would  be 
administered.  Ground  was  broken  in  1877,  but  it  was 
not  until  after  the  death  of  the  first  director  and  of 
the  founder  two  years  later,  in  1882,  that  the  last  piece 
of  apparatus  was  in  position.  The  donor  was  unstinting 
in  his  provision  for  equipment  and  patient  in  meeting 
the  minor  demands  which  followed  in  the  train  of  the 
main  installation.  Professor  Watson  had  begun  a  Solar 
Observatory  and  a  Students'  Observatory,  which  Gov- 
ernor Washburn,  after  the  death  of  the  former  and  be- 
fore his  own,  provided  the  means  for  completing.  The 
university  contributed  twelve  hundred  dollars  for  the 
purchase  of  a  minor  telescope  to  be  used  by  students. 


GROWING  UP  213 

Its  situation  on  the  crown  of  the  twin  hill  to  the  west, 
overlooking  University  Bay,  gave  the  Observatory  a 
Starry  setting  which  was  a  worthy  acknowledgment  of 
the  first  great  act  of  private  munificence  toward  the 
university.  In  1883,  Cyrus  Woodman,  as  a  tribute  to 
the  partner  of  his  old  Wisconsin  days,  when  he  had  been 
a  member  of  the  first  board  of  regents,  gave  five  thou- 
sand dollars  for  the  endowment  of  the  astronomical 
library  which  bears  his  name.  This,  like  the  greater 
gift,  was  accepted  as  distinguished  evidence  of  private 
faith  in  the  permanence  of  the  university.  Generously 
started  and  ably  manned,  Washburn  Observatory  im- 
mediately took  and  has  held  ever  since  a  more  than 
creditable  position  among  institutions  of  its  class. 

By  frugal  management  and  by  deferring  the  enlarge- 
ment of  the  faculty,  the  administration,  out  of  the  pro- 
ceeds of  the  mill  tax  of  1876,  had  accumulated  in  the 
next  two  years  a  surplus  of  thirty-two  thousand  dollars. 
With  this  sum  in  hand,  the  contracts  were  let  for 
Assembly  Hall,  which  was  completed,  at  a  cost  of  about 
thirty-five  thousand  dollars,  in  1879.  It  was  constructed, 
in  the  main,  like  all  the  preceding  buildings,  out  of  the 
local  material;  but  a  limited  use  of  red  sandstone  was 
admitted  in  its  trimmings,  and  a  design  was  adopted 
which  gave  it  something  of  the  appearance  of  a  chapel. 
Though  not  in  itself  unpleasing  or  inappropriate,  it  was 
unfortunate  in  setting  the  precedent  of  a  departure  from 
the  simple  rectangular  lines  of  construction  which  had 
hitherto  prevailed.  Besides  providing  the  university 
with  a  hall  in  which  the  entire  student  body  could 
convene,  the  building  was  intended  to  accommodate,  and 
in  fact  did  accommodate  (after  a  fashion)  for  about 
twenty-five  years,  the  university  collection  of  books,  and 
their  readers.    In  its  two-fold  aspect,  it  would  be  hard 


214  WISCONSIN 

to  overestimate  the  significance  of  this  old  building  as 
a  rallying  place  of  college  life  and  influence.  Had  this 
building  been  consumed  by  fire,  we  should  have  regained 
one  of  the  choicest  sites  on  the  campus,  and  we  should 
have  lost  one  of  the  most  suggestive  memorials  of  the 
"J.  B."  days. 

It  will  have  been  noticed  that  among  the  appointments 
of  Science  Hall  were  steam  heating  and  a  water  supply. 
While  these  modern  luxuries  were  being  installed,  pipes 
were  laid  to  the  woman's  dormitory  and  it,  also,  was 
linked  to  the  progress  of  the  ages ;  bathtubs  and  modern 
plumbing  were  added  to  the  educational  facilities  of  the 
young  women.  Having  carried  out  these  and  similar 
improvements  and  having  finally  secured,  in  1882,  an 
appropriation  of  ten  thousand  dollars  for  the  renovation 
of  Main  Hall,  the  officers  of  the  institution  congratulated 
themselves  and  the  state  that  the  necessity  for  such 
demands  was  ended  for  many  years  to  come.  But  the 
hopes  of  a  peaceful  progress  in  other  directions  were 
overthrown  by  the  disaster  to  Science  Hall.  The  uni- 
versity suddenly  found  itself  in  the  throes  of  another 
building  era. 

The  destruction  of  so  important  a  part  of  the  univer- 
sity's plant  seriously  crippled  its  work  for  several  years 
and  retarded  its  internal  progress  just  as  it  was  getting 
thoroughly  under  way.  This  should  be  remembered  in 
estimating  the  growth  of  instructional  work  during 
Bascom's  administration.  A  large  amount  of  energy  was 
dissipated  in  improvising  expedients  to  meet  the  im- 
mediate emergency  and  still  more  in  the  formation  of 
new  plans  for  the  future  and  seeing  them  through.  The 
legislature  had  to  be  reckoned  with  again,  and  yet  again ; 
the  construction  of  new  buildings  more  than  occupied  the 
remainder  of  Bascom's  term;  while  the  reassembling  of 


GKOWING  UP  215 

apparatus  extended  well  into  the  next  administration. 
The  institution  issued  from  this  period  of  material 
anxiety  stronger  than  before  in  its  provisions  for  scien- 
tific and  technical  instruction,  and  it  did  not  cease  to 
grow ;  but  it  must  have  appreciably  diminished  its  stride 
for  the  time  being.  What  this  new  and  lavish  outlay 
may  have  cost  the  university  in  other  directions  it  would 
not  be  easy  to  estimate. 

Fortunately  a  meeting  of  the  legislature  was  close  at 
hand.  Insurance  to  the  amount  of  forty-one  thousand 
dollars  was  available  and  authority  was  obtained  to  use 
this  money  for  the  purchase  and  installation  of  appa- 
ratus. The  North  Dormitory  was  cleared  of  students  and 
fitted  up  to  receive  the  departments  that  had  been  burned 
out.  When,  two  years  later,  it  became  necessary  to  pro- 
vide quarters  for  the  Agricultural  Experiment  Station, 
every  resource  was  being  strained  to  find  the  means  of 
completing  the  group  of  buildings  already  begun.  The 
South  Dormitory,  which  had  already  been  invaded,  was 
now  remodelled  and  given  over  entirely  to  other  pur- 
poses, and  with  this  transformation,  dormitories  for  men 
came  to  an  end  at  Wisconsin. 

"Tlie  loss  thus  suddenly  encountered  will  not  prove 
wholly  without  mitigation,  if  it  shall  serve  to  impress 
upon  the  public  mind  the  folly  of  subjecting  accumu- 
lated treasures  which  no  money  can  restore  to  like  peril 
in  future,"  wrote  President  Paul  of  the  board  of  regents 
in  commenting  on  the  fire.  It  was  resolved  that  Science 
Hall  should  be  replaced  by  a  group  of  buildings  instead 
of  a  single  structure ;  that  the  new  Science  Hall,  proper, 
should  be  made  as  nearly  fireproof  as  means  would 
allow;  and  that  the  carpenter  and  machine  shops,  the 
chemical  laboratories,  and  the  power  and  heating  plant, 
respectively,   should  be   housed  in  separate  buildings. 


216  WISCONSIN 

For  these  purposes,  appropriations  amounting  to  one 
hundred  and  ninety  thousand  dollars  were  made  by 
the  legislature  of  1885.  The  contracts  for  the  minor 
buildings  were  let  first  and  at  such  figures  as  to  eat 
into  the  main  appropriation.  When  the  bids  on  Science 
Hall  were  examined,  they  proved  to  be  far  in  excess 
of  the  appropriation  and,  it  was  believed,  outrageously 
in  excess  of  a  fair  estimate.  The  regents  determined  to 
reject  all  bids  and.  go  ahead  on  their  own  account. 
Professor  Allan  D.  Conover  was  relieved  of  teaching 
duties  and  appointed  superintendent  of  construction. 
Work  was  begun  in  August,  1885,  and  finished  in  Jan- 
uary, 1888.  The  original  plans  called  for  a  building  of 
slow-burning  construction;  but,  as  the  work  of  clearing 
away  the  old  ruin  proceeded,  the  determination  grew  to 
make  the  new  structure  entirely  fireproof.  To  do  this 
meant  greatly  to  exceed  the  appropriation.  With  the 
building  half  done,  it  became  necessary  to  invite  the 
legislature  of  1887  to  appropriate  one  hundred  thousand 
dollars  for  its  completion,  forty  thousand  dollars  more 
for  equipment,  and  ten  thousand  dollars  for  furniture. 
The  method  by  which  the  regents  had  carried  on  the 
work  had  offended  some  of  the  large  contractors  in  the 
state,  and  the  university  found  itself  opposed  by  power- 
ful enemies.  There  was  a  tedious  investigation  of  sev- 
eral weeks  which,  however,  was  suddenly  interrupted  by 
the  news  that  the  bill  for  the  needed  appropriations  had 
passed  the  assembly.  The  accounts  of  the  regents  show 
the  final  cost  of  construction  to  have  been  close  to  two 
hundred  sixty  thousand  dollars,  and  of  furniture  and 
equipment,  about  fifty  thousand  dollars.  The  cost  of  the 
entire  group  was  a  trifle  over  three  hundred  and  ninety 
thousand  dollars,  or  somewhat  more  than  twice  the 
amount  at  first  appropriated. 


GROWING  UP  217 

Boldly  as  the  regents  had  proceeded,  possibly  even  to 
the  degree  of  having  exceeded  their  authority,  it  cannot 
be  said  that  they  had  overestimated  the  requirements  of 
the  university;  nor,  as  it  proved,  had  they  grossly  mis- 
interpreted the  popular  wish  so  far  as  it  was  voiced  by 
the  legislature.  Judge  Keyes  had  excited  no  little  merri- 
ment in  the  Committee  on  Appropriations  when  he 
hazarded  the  calculation  that,  within  ten  years,  there 
would  be  a  thousand  students  in  attendance.  Yet  this 
pinnacle  was  attained  before  all  the  funds  provided  for 
equipment  had  been  expended. 

The  new  buildings  were  more  remarkable  for  utility 
and  security  than  for  artistic  merit.  From  the  latter 
point  of  view,  they  have  remained  ever  since  an  in- 
harmonious element  in  the  campus  scheme,  a  discord  the 
more  grievous  because  of  the  colossal  permanence  of 
Science  Hall  which  nothing  can  founder,  short  of  an 
earthquake  or  a  foreign  invasion,  or  an  aesthetic  insur- 
rection hardly  more  imminent  than  either.  The  three 
minor  buildings  were  constructed  of  cream  brick.  The 
original  plan  of  Science  Hall  had  called  for  a  stone 
structure  with  foundation  facings  of  Berlin  granite. 
When  it  was  decided  to  make  the  building  "fireproof  in 
accordance  with  the  best  ideas  of  the  time,"  structural 
steel  (a  most  advanced  engineering  idea),  hollow  tile, 
and  red  brick  were  adopted  for  the  superstructure,  the 
whole  topped  with  a  high-pitched  roof  of  black  slate. 
The  largest,  most  useful,  most  expensive,  and  easily  the 
ugliest  building  the  university  had  yet  acquired,  Science 
Hall  will  doubtless  stand  indefinitely,  a  monument  to  the 
prosperity,  progressivenes,  bad  taste,  and  good  inten- 
tions of  the  latter  eighties. 

Much  of  the  credit  and  of  the  responsibility  for  the 
external   development  of  the  university   during  these 


218  WISCONSIN 

years  belongs  to  the  board  of  regents.  Throughout  Bas- 
com's  term,  the  business  management  of  the  university 
was  more  completely  in  their  hands  than  it  since  has 
been.  The  law  of  1866  excluded  the  president  of  the 
faculty  from  a  seat  in  the  board.  Bascom  appreciated 
the  disadvantage  of  this  arrangement  and  formally  ap- 
pealed to  the  board  in  1877  to  bring  about  a  change; 
but  no  action  was  taken,  although  a  majority  of  the 
committee  appointed  to  consider  the  subject  reported  in 
favor  of  admitting  the  president  to  membership,  stating 
in  support  of  their  recommendation  that  the  practice  at 
Wisconsin  was  unlike  that  of  all  similar  institutions. 
With  longer  acquaintance,  the  diversity  of  view  between 
the  president  and  regents  increased  instead  of  diminish- 
ing, until  at  last  the  board  took  it  upon  themselves  to 
define  the  scope  of  the  duties  of  each.  In  Bascom 's  last 
year  a  bill  to  effect  his  object  carried  the  state  senate; 
but  the  opposition  defeated  it  in  the  lower  house.  The 
opposition  to  the  president  on  this  issue  was  undoubt- 
edly more  a  personal  than  a  theoretical  matter.  Early 
in  the  next  administration  a  law  was  passed  making  the 
president,  ex  officio,  a  member  of  the  board  of  regents, 
with  a  voice  in  its  proceedings  and  power  to  vote  in  case 
of  tie. 

Happily  for  the  university,  the  board  of  regents  con- 
tained several  conspicuous  men  who,  however  they  might 
differ  from  the  president  in  ways  of  thinking  or  even  in 
principles  of  action,  had  the  welfare  of  the  institution 
at  heart.  For  the  chairmanship  of  the  executive  com- 
mittee, a  resident  of  Madison  was  always  chosen,  and 
this  officer  was  virtually  the  business  manager  of  the 
university.  As  noted  in  a  preceding  chapter  Napoleon 
B.  Van  Slyke  filled  this  position  from  the  time  of  the 
reorganization  until  the  middle  of  Bascom 's  adminis- 


GROWING  UP  219 

tration.  He  was  a  banker  and  a  man  of  keen  business 
sense.  He  had  a  nipping  and  an  eager  eye  and  few 
details  connected  with  university  property  escaped  his 
observation  and  irascible  care.  In  the  days  of  the  im- 
portance of  small  things  he  performed  a  valuable  service 
for  the  university.  He  was  succeeded  in  1879  by  Elisha 
W.  Keyes,  who  held  the  position  until  his  retirement 
from  the  board  of  regents  in  1889.  Judge  Keyes,  or  as  he 
was  profanely  called,  "Boss"  Keyes,  was  for  many  years 
the  chief  whip  of  the  Republican  party  in  the  state.  He 
possessed  qualities  that  may  be  surmised  from  this  emi- 
nence. To  his  expansive  and  forceful  temper  and  com- 
mand of  the  means  by  which  things  are  brought  to  pass, 
the  university  owed,  in  no  small  measure,  the  ampler 
material  scale  on  which  it  was  developed  during  the 
decade  between  1880  and  1890.  In  Bascom's  remi- 
niscences,1 these  two  men  are  the  only  individuals  asso- 
ciated with  his  work  at  Wisconsin  who  are  distinguished 
by  personal  mention. 

The  president  of  the  board  from  1875  to  1877  and 
again  from  1880  until  his  death  in  1890,  was  George  H. 
Paul  of  Milwaukee.  Intelligence  no  less  than  long  serv- 
ice gave  him  a  wide  grasp  of  the  purposes  and  needs  of 
the  institution.  His  official  reports  on  the  condition  of 
the  university  are  eminent  among  the  documents  of  their 
particular  class  in  the  printed  records  of  the  board  of 
regents.  Another  regent  who  deserves  mention  was 
Hiram  Smith,  who  was  active  from  1878  until  his  death 
in  1890,  wielding  an  important  influence  as  chairman  of 
the  Farm  Committee.  Governor  Washburn,  after  his 
splendid  gift  to  the  state,  was  by  legislative  act  made 

1  Things  Learned  by  Living,  pp.  70-71.  Hi8  reference  to  Keyes 
is  more  kindly  than  that  to  Van  Slyke,  but  this  affability  doea 
not  include  the  correct  recollection  of  his  Christian  name. 


220  WISCONSIN 

a  life  member  of  the  board  of  regents ;  but  unfortunately 
his  tenure  was  not  long.  In  1881,  J.  C.  Gregory  of 
Madison,  who  had  rendered  loyal  service  for  a  dozen 
years,  was  succeeded  on  the  board  and  on  the  executive 
committee  by  William  F.  Vilas,  '58,  and  a  year  later, 
another  alumnus,  John  C.  Spooner,  '64,  became  a  mem- 
ber of  the  board.  Both  were  called  to  other  fields  in 
1885;  the  latter  to  represent  the  state  in  the  national 
senate,  the  former  to  join  the  cabinet  of  Grover  Cleve- 
land, and  four  years  later,  he,  too,  was  elected  to  the 
senate. 

President  Bascom's  attitude  toward  the  board  of 
regents,  reminiscently  at  least,  was  incorrect,  inasmuch 
as  he  seems  to  have  regarded  the  board  primarily  in  the 
light  of  an  annoyance.  In  reviewing  the  conditions  of 
university  administration,  he  mentions  as  its  chief  draw- 
back the  fact  that  the  board  of  regents  "was  made  up 
almost  exclusively  of  those  interested  in  politics,"  and 
complains  that  "rarely,  indeed,  was  any  man  granted  the 
position  of  Regent  who  had  any  special  knowledge  of  the 
methods  of  education  or  interest  in  them."  Doubtless, 
in  these  respects,  the  conditions  were  not  entirely  what 
might  have  been  desired,  and  doubtless  the  president  was 
right  in  contending  that  he  ought  to  have  a  larger  hand 
in  the  business  affairs  of  the  university,  but  even  so,  he 
seems  too  little  concessive  in  theory  as  he  was  in  practice. 
After  all,  the  university  is  a  popular  institution;  this 
is  its  calling,  by  which  it  must  stand  or  fall.  It  is 
highly  improbable  that  in  this  state,  or  in  any  other  at 
a  similar  stage,  a  group  of  men  could  have  been  as- 
sembled, possessing  a  special  knowledge  of  education  and 
possessing  at  the  same  time  the  ability  and  the  influence 
necessary  to  procure  from  popular  assemblies  the  ma- 
terial conditions  requisite  for  a  high  order  of  educational 


GROWING  UP  221 

development.  Bascom  himself  could  not  have  secured 
these  conditions  without  the  assistance  of  men  of  large 
political  influence  and  the  order  of  abilities  that  this  in- 
fluence implies.  It  is  well  known  that  the  efforts  of 
Vilas,  for  example,  were  largely  effective  in  obtaining 
the  appropriation  of  1885,  as  had  been  those  of  Spooner 
in  obtaining  the  favorable  legislation  of  an  earlier  period. 
The  presence,  upon  the  board,  of  graduates  of  the  uni- 
versity whose  popular  qualities  and  reputation  were 
such  that  they  were  accorded  the  highest  political 
honors  in  the  gift  of  the  state,  was  of  incalculable  ad- 
vantage in  two  ways;  it  intensified  the  zeal  for  the  in- 
stitution of  the  board  itself,  and  it  gained  the  university 
prestige  in  wider  circles.  And,  as  it  was  the  office  of 
the  board  of  regents  to  mediate  between  him  and  the 
governing  forces  of  the  state,  so  was  it  the  office  of  the 
president  to  mediate  between  the  board  and  the  more 
recondite  educational  aspects  of  the  university.  This  he 
unquestionably  did ;  but  he  shows  too  little  consciousness 
of  the  positive  use  of  the  board  in  its  particular  plane 
of  service. 

It  would  be  easy  to  attach  too  much  importance,  how- 
ever, to  the  friction  between  President  Bascom  and  the 
regents.  It  made  his  position  more  arduous ;  but  it  did 
not  seriously  impair  his  usefulness  or  greatly  alter,  in 
essentials,  the  course  of  the  university.  The  fact  that  he 
differed  from  the  board  as  to  the  methods  to  be  pursued 
in  attaining  an  object  was  of  minor  importance  if  in  the 
long  run  the  object  was  attained.  In  general,  the  ma- 
terial development  of  the  university  followed  the  lines 
which  he  advised.  And  whereas  this  was  generally  so 
of  external  matters,  it  was  specifically  so  of  purely  educa- 
tional concerns  in  which  he  was  readily  conceded  to 
possess  primary  authority. 


222  WISCONSIN 

Of  principal  importance  for  the  intellectual  progress 
of  the  university  was  its  relation  to  the  entire  system  of 
public  education  in  the  state.  The  instinct  of  self- 
preservation  had  thus  far  prevented  the  university  from 
shaking  off  its  preparatory  department, — a  vexatious 
life-preserver,  in  that  it  had  inherent  predilections  for 
the  wrong  side  of  the  center  of  gravity.  Deft  escape 
from  this  embarrassing  aid  to  navigation  involved  the 
use  of  some  prudence  and  some  courage.  In  the  existing 
state  of  secondary  education,  to  abolish  the  preparatory 
department  would  be  to  abandon  a  chief  reliance  for 
filling  the  college  classes.  Of  eighty-two  freshmen  enter- 
ing in  the  autumn  of  1874,  thirty-six  were  graduates  of 
the  graded  schools  of  the  state  and  exactly  an  equal 
number  had  been  fitted  in  the  university  itself.  The 
university  must  reach  down  to  the  next  general  level  of 
education.  As  Bascom  tellingly  put  it,  "If  you  make  a 
tree  higher  by  raising  its  roots  above  the  ground  the  tree 
will  die. "  1  On  the  other  hand,  the  continuance  of  ele- 
mentary classes  congested  the  university  with  an  inferior 
personnel  and  dulled  its  intellectual  tone;  moreover,  it 
retarded  the  development  of  preparatory  instruction  else- 
where. Mature  persons  who  possessed  only  the  rudi- 
ments of  an  education  and  had  no  serious  intention  of 
pursuing  an  advanced  course,  could  transiently  identify 
themselves  with  the  university  and  adulterate  its  general 
life;  whereas  the  same  patronage,  though  enervating  to 
an  institution  of  higher  learning,  might  appropriately 
be  a  source  of  encouragement  to  schools  of  lower  grade. 
A  sudden  application  of  new  standards  would  imperil  in 
some  measure  the  actual  usefulness  of  the  institution; 
besides  which  the  university  must  reckon  with  the  popu- 
lar dementia  for  estimating  the  success  of  an  institution 

1  Baccalaureate:  Education  and  the  State  (1877). 


GROWING  UP  223 

by  the  number  of  its  students  regardless  of  their  quality. 
Yet  a  break  must  come  sometime,  if  ever  the  university 
was  to  free  itself  from  a  burdensome  drag  on  its  intel- 
lectual life. 

How  far  Bascom  may  receive  credit  for  the  steps  im- 
mediately taken  by  the  state  to  improve  the  condition  of 
secondary  education  it  is  difficult  to  say.  He  devoted 
the  opening  paragraphs  of  his  first  printed  report  to  a 
plea  for  improvement  in  this  direction  as  vital  to  the 
health  of  the  entire  system  of  education  in  the  state, 
including  the  university,  and  stressed  the  anxiety  on 
the  part  of  the  university  to  surrender  its  preparatory 
work  as  soon  as  this  should  be  practicable.  Probably  the 
same  emphasis  had  currency  wherever  his  influence  ex- 
tended. It  was  not  a  totally  new  question ;  but  through- 
out this  year,  there  was,  among  the  educational  leaders 
of  the  state,  a  noticeable  unanimity  of  emphasis  upon 
the  subject  of  intermediate  instruction.  Searing,  the  new 
superintendent  of  public  instruction,  and,  ex  officio, 
member  of  the  board  of  regents,  made  it  the  special  topic 
of  his  annual  report,  and  it  was  he  that  drew  the  excel- 
lent law,  passed  by  the  next  legislature  (1875),  upon 
which  was  based  the  system  of  state  aid  in  the  main- 
tenance of  free  high  schools.  After  five  years  of  the 
operation  of  this  law  there  had  been  organized  in  the 
state  one  hundred  and  ten  high  schools,  of  which  all 
except  fifteen  were  receiving  the  benefit  of  the  law.  The 
time  for  which  the  president  and  faculty  had  been  work- 
ing and  waiting  was  at  hand.  After  due  announcement, 
the  last  sub-freshman  class  was  admitted  in  the  autumn 
of  1879  and,  on  the  completion  of  the  course  by  this 
group,  the  preparatory  department,  except  for  a  small 
Greek  class,  came  to  an  end  in  June,  1881.  So  was 
accomplished   an   object   which   had   been   fitfully   be- 


224  WISCONSIN 

fore  the  university  administration  for  thirty-two  years. 
Five  years  earlier,  the  "accredited  schools"  system 
had  been  inaugurated,  in  order  to  stimulate  special  ef- 
fort on  the  part  of  the  secondary  schools  to  prepare 
pupils  for  the  courses  of  the  university.  The  Madison 
High  School  was  the  first  to  take  advantage  of  this  mode 
of  affiliation.  By  the  time  the  preparatory  work  of  the 
university  finally  disappeared  there  were  thirteen  high 
schools  and  academies  on  the  "accredited  list,"  and  by 
Bascom's  last  year,  the  number  had  increased  to  thirty- 
nine.  At  the  time  the  discontinuance  of  the  preparatory 
department  was  determined,  then,  less  than  a  dozen 
schools  within  the  state  had  announced  themselves  as  pre- 
pared to  fit  pupils  definitely  for  the  university.  The  ac- 
tion was  boldly  taken  with  a  view  to  forcing  the  work  of 
preparation  as  speedily  as  possible  upon  the  secondary 
schools.  This  involved  some  sacrifice.  The  university 
was  just  recovering  from  the  setback  to  attendance  pro- 
duced by  a  slight  advance  and  more  rigid  enforcement 
of  entrance  requirements  during  Bascom's  first  two 
years.  Since  that  time  there  had  been  a  slow  but  steady 
increase,  especially  in  the  classical  courses.  By  abolish- 
ing the  preparatory  department  these  courses  were  again 
hard  hit  and  the  total  attendance  was  considerably  re- 
duced, falling,  in  1882-83,  to  three  hundred  and  sixty- 
seven,  the  lowest  registration,  so  far  as  actual  number 
was  concerned,  that  the  university  had  known  for  many 
years.  The  courage  and  wisdom  of  the  step  were  quickly 
justified,  however;  recovery  immediately  set  in;  the 
number  of  the  accredited  schools  rapidly  increased,  and 
the  university  soon  had  all  the  students  of  appropriate 
grade  that  it  could  conveniently  provide  for;  although, 
chiefly  from  other  causes  perhaps,  the  classical  courses 
never  entirely  recovered  from  the  check  they  suffered  at 


GROWING  UP  225 

this  time.1  The  rapid  growth  in  numbers  came  a  little 
later;  but  its  beginnings  were  perceptible  at  the  very- 
end  of  Bascom's  tenure,  when  the  enrollment  jumped 
from  four  hundred  and  twenty-one  to  five  hundred  and 
five,  an  increase  of  forty  per  cent,  in  a  single  year. 

During  the  earlier  half  of  this  period,  as  has  been 
stated,  the  classical  courses  had  steadily  gained  ground ; 
during  its  middle  years  each  of  them  held  about  an  even 
balance  with  the  scientific  course.  But  about  1881,  the 
Greek  course  began  to  fall  away,  not  only  in  relative, 
but  in  absolute  numbers  and  never  regained  its  former 
strength.  Thereafter,  the  set  was  increasingly  toward 
modern  subjects,  toward  science,  and  toward  the  tech- 
nical departments.  The  tendency  toward  greater  di- 
versification of  courses  and  toward  more  extended  spe- 
cialization in  them  had  already  manifested  itself.  The 
engineering  courses,  which  at  first  had  been  differen- 
tiated from  the  general  course  in  science  only  in  the 
junior  and  senior  years  were  extended  to  the  sophomore 
year  and  finally,  in  Bascom's  last  year,  were  laid  down 
for  the  entire  four-year  period.  The  influence  of  the 
president  still  retained  Psychology  as  a  senior  study,  but, 
with  the  removal  of  his  personal  pressure,  this  last  in- 
tegument of  the  old  fashioned  liberal  ideal  disappeared 
from  the  technical  courses;  even  the  small  amount  of 
foreign  language  retained  was  supposed  to  be  of  a  tech- 
nical character.  Another  innovation  of  this  last  year 
was  an  English  course  which  required  no  foreign  lan- 
guage for  admission  and  only  two  years  of  a  single  lan- 
guage for  graduation.    The  establishment  of  this  course, 

1  The  effect  of  what  Bascom  somewhere  calls  "  the  sensuous 
appeal  "  of  science  is  well  exemplified  by  the  registrations  of 
1885-86,  when,  just  after  the  starting  of  the  new  group  of  science 
buildings,  fifty-seven  out  of  eighty  regular  freshmen  registered  for 
the  science  course. 


•226  WISCONSIN 

after  the  distinct  separation  of  the  engineering  courses, 
'combined  with  a  somewhat  lenient  administration  of  the 
group  known  as  Special  Students,  relieved  the  science 
course  of  its  "general  purpose"  role  and  strengthened 
its  special  character.  These  processes  of  diversification 
were  carried  still  farther  at  the  beginning  of  the  next 
administration. 

Two  matters  of  general  management,  not  totally  un- 
related to  each  other,  were  items  of  concern  during  the 
earlier  years  of  this  period,  namely,  coeducation  and 
student  discipline.  Coeducation  existed,  both  practi- 
cally and  officially,  before  Bascom  came  and  the  im- 
portance of  his  influence  in  this  direction  has  been  over- 
estimated at  times.  There  was  still  some  unrest  on  the 
subject,  nevertheless,  and  this  the  casual  firmness  with 
which  he  aligned  himself  on  the  side  of  sex  equality 
tended  to  allay.  His  position  was  well  known  in  ad- 
vance. Two  years  before  coming  to  Wisconsin  he  had 
"made  the  conservative  heart  of  Old  Williams  throb" 
by  advocating  the  admission  of  women  before  the  alumni 
association  of  the  college.  The  reaction  at  Wisconsin 
took  the  line  of  deprecating  the  effect  of  the  system  upon 
the  health  of  the  women,  and  was  probably  a  splinter 
from  a  wide  discussion  which  followed  furious  attacks 
on  coeducation  ("where  this  means  identical  education 
of  the  sexes")  by  Dr.  E.  H.  Clarke  of  Harvard,  in  the 
North  American  Review  and  before  the  National  Educa- 
tion Association,  in  1874.  A  return  to  some  form  of 
segregation  was  being  considered  by  the  board  of  regents 
during  the  year  1877,  and  the  same  year  the  board  of 
visitors  were  shocked  by  the  anaemic  aspect  of  the  young 
women  of  the  university.  The  contention  that  a  life  of 
study  was  more  injurious  to  female  health  than  to  male 
was  statistically  refuted  by  the  president's  record  of 


GROWING  UP  227 

excuses  granted  on  account  of  illness,  which  made  out  a 
much  more  shocking  ease  for  the  men  than  for  the 
women.  The  agitation  blew  over  in  the  course  of  three 
or  four  years.  Its  most  tangible  result  was  probably  a 
more  serious  attention  to  the  sanitary  condition  of  the 
women's  dormitory  to  which  reference  has  bees  made. 

The  difficulties  of  student  discipline  were  rather  miti- 
gated than  increased  by  coeducation.  Offenses  of  scan- 
dalous gravity  arising  out  of  the  propinquity  of  the  sexes 
were  extremely  rare,  and  the  regulation  of  excessive 
luxury  or  waste  of  time  in  social  recreation  was  not  yet 
a  serious  problem.  Upon  the  usual  peccadilloes  of  the 
college  student,  the  presence  of  women  acted  as  a  re- 
straint. This  effect  was  particularly  noticeable  in  the 
classroom,  where  there  was  relatively  little  of  that  dis- 
position to  annoy  the  instructor  which  so  often  existed 
in  the  men's  colleges  of  the  East;  the  only  exceptions 
were  in  occasional  cases  of  individual  instructors  whose 
eccentricities  devoted  them  to  what  was  regarded  as  a 
meritorious  persecution.  Outside  the  classroom,  the  men 
were  still  given  more  or  less  to  those  sorry  pranks  which 
used  to  be  traditional  among  college  students.  Hazing, 
practical  jokes,  and  the  disfigurement  of  public,  and  pri- 
vate property  continued  to  be  honored  as  mart  of  wit 
and  spirit.  The  dormitories  were  usually  tb^  colters  of 
disturbance  and  the  old  "dormitory  court./*  which  ad- 
ministered mock  justice  toward  offenders;  against  con- 
formity and  tradition,  did  not  wholly  <Jie  out  until  it 
was  burned  out  of  the  "Old  Gym"  several  years  after 
Bascom  left.  Among  the  institutions  which  tradition, 
had  hit  upon  as  a  deserving  victim,  of  student  mischief 
was  the  university  farm,  and  so  thorough  were  the  de-pre^ 
dations  that  Professor  Henry  rtgoorted  not  long  after  hfm 
arrival  that  it  would  be  futile.  \&  continue  experi^en^  in 


228  WISCONSIN 

horticulture  so  long  as  this  spirit  prevailed.  The  class- 
room of  Professor  Rosenstengel  was  frequently  the  scene 
of  ostensibly  unexpected  live-stock  exhibitions.  There 
was  the  usual  standing  feud  between  "town"  and 
"gown"  and  an  increasing  one,  during  Bascom's  time, 
between  "barb"  and  "frat";  each  of  these  was  oc- 
casionally the  source  of  an  unseemly  outbreak. 

Bascom  believed  the  best  form  of  college  discipline  to 
be  that  which  was  most  personal.  Hence  most  of  these 
trivial  but  annoying  misdemeanors,  as  well  as  cases  of 
dishonesty  or  serious  neglect  in  connection  with  studies, 
were  dealt  with  directly  by  the  president.  The  culprit 
was  summoned  into  the  dreadful  presence,  where  he 
found  himself  under  the  calm,  inflexible  gaze  of  his 
judge.  He  was  keenly  but  fairly  examined;  the  extent 
and  nature  of  his  guilt  were  ascertained  and  weighed, 
and  his  penalty  fixed.  It  was  soon  over ;  but  the  shame- 
faced perpetrator  of  a  piece  of  silliness  usually  felt  that 
it  was  enough  "to  last  a  'ealthy  Tommy  'alf  a  year." 
To  the  average  student,  half-man,  half-boy,  each  half 
embarrassed  by  the  other,  a  sharp  collision  with  the 
massive  and  self-possessed  wisdom  of  John  Bascom  was 
a  revelation  of  the  nature  of  things.  It  shocked  the 
remnants  of  the  scapegrace  out  of  many  a  budding 
citizen. 

But  the  punitive  treatment  of  misconduct,  important 
as  it  was  as  a  system  in  bringing  the  president  into  close 
personal  contact  with  a  troublesome  element  in  student 
life,  was  of  little  consequence  compared  with  the  con- 
structive influence  he  gradually  acquired  as  a  leader  of 
student  thought  and  ethics.  The  broad  improvement  in 
behavior  came  by  substitution  rather  than  by  repression ; 
by  the  stimulation  of  more  serious  interests ;  by  a  judi- 
cious allowance  of  freedom  with  the  encouragement  of 


GROWING  UP  229 

self-reliance  and  a  sense  of  responsibility ;  in  a  word,  by 
the  creation  of  a  spirit  of  maturity  in  the  student  con- 
sciousness. The  university,  as  Bascom  found  it,  had  in 
many  ways  the  social  tone  of  a  big  country  academy ;  he 
left  it  a  college  of  men  and  women,  by  no  means  pre- 
maturely settled,  but  earnest,  with  an  interest  in  impor- 
tant matters,  public  and  private,  and  with  reasoned  opin- 
ions about  them.  It  is  doubtful  if  the  undergraduates, 
taken  in  the  mass,  have  ever  had,  before  or  since,  so 
much  of  this  tone. 

In  a  larger  measure  than  would  seem  possible  under 
present  conditions,  this  temper  of  the  college  came  about 
through  the  direct  influence  of  the  president  himself, 
partly  through  personal  contact  with  individual  stu- 
dents, still  more  through  his  addresses  to  the  entire  col- 
lege or  to  representative  groups,  and  through  his  daily 
teaching  in  the  classroom  most  of  all.  There,  year  by 
year,  he  met  every  student  of  the  senior  class.  Of 
Bascom 's  work  as  a  teacher,  we  are  fortunate  in  pos- 
sessing a  full  analysis  by  an  expert  and  an  eye-witness, 
President  Birge,1  who  was  his  pupil  at  Williams  and  his 
colleague  throughout  his  Wisconsin  labors.  In  a  striking 
passage  where  Bascom 's  teaching  is  contrasted  with  that 
of  Mark  Hopkins,  he  points  out  that,  what  the  student 
found  in  Bascom 's  classroom  was  "intellectual  power  at 
work. ' ' 

"I  never  felt  that  I — the  student  in  the  class — was 
much  more  than  one  of  the  counters  with  which  the  game 
was  played.  I  recited,  I  was  sharply  questioned,  my 
ideas  were  sifted  and  corrected,  I  was  thoroughly  taught ; 
but  what  was  wanted  from  me  was  not  so  much  my  view 
as  my  aid  in  developing  the  subject  along  the  lines 

1  President  Bascom  and  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  read  al 
the  Memorial  Service  in  Honor  of  John  Bascom,  December  13) 
1911.     One  of  the  thoroughly  indispensable  university  documents. 


!&3Q  WISCONSIN 

"forked  ©T&'t "by .'tli-e  teacher.  He  searched  the  empty  re- 
< Cesses  of  my  mind  for  the  truth  which  he  wanted.  His 
■teaching  aimed  to  get  my  mind  alive  to  the  subject,  so 
that  I  ■could -see  it  as  he  did.  His  mind  was  at  work  in 
all  its  power;  eager  to  move  the  matter  along;  pressing 
forward  zLtitl  carrying  the  students  with  it. ' ' 

This  of  his  general  method.  Of  Bascom's  special 
power  in  the  teaching  of  philosophy  and  ethics,  Dr. 
Birge  'Writes : 

""IsEe  found  in  philosophy  the  principles  which  made 
life  coherent  and  intelligible.  Here  was  knowledge  which 
invited  it  to  that  world  of  things  which  is  also  the  world 
•of  'thought.  Here  was  the  truth  whose  vision  glorified 
life  and  made  it  not  a  matter  of  routine,  not  an  endu- 
Tance  of  the  inevitable,  or  an  acceptance  of  the  necessary,, 
■but  a  free,  exultant  movement  through  a  world  which  is 
its  possession,  now  and  forever.  From  philosophy  came 
the  revelation  which  correlated  life's  scattered  experi- 
ences and  corrected  its  partial  views.  Here  was  the  vital 
spark  which  made  life  really  life,  a  power  that  can  ap- 
propriate, assimilate,  and  live  by  the  alien  substances  of 
the  outer  world. 

"Dr.  Bascom  showed  his  students  day  by  day  in  the 
classroom  such  a  life  ..." 

Then,  after  showing  in  greater  detail  the  manner  in 
which  the  teacher  turned  the  light  of  philosophy  upon 
the  problems  of  life,  and  eventually  upon  the  problems 
of  society,  President  Birge  concludes : 

".  .  .  I  question  whether  tlie  history  of  any  great 
commonwealth  can  show  so  intimate  a  relation  between 
the  forces  which  have  governed  its  social  development 
and  the  principles  expounded  from  a  teacher's  desk  as 
that  which  exists  between  Wisconsin  and  the  classroom 
of  John  Bascom." 

The  influence  which  Bascom  exerted  throughout  the 
college  was  rarified  by  an  infusion  of  noble  spiritual 


GROWING  UP  231 

eaching.     He  was  religious  in  the  broadest  and  most 
general  sense  as  well  as  in  the  immediate  Christian  sense ,, 
md  his  influence  in  this  sphere  was  neither  fettered  by 
dogmatic  bias  nor  stultified  by  pietistic  sentimentality. 
A  teaching  which  involved  these  latter  elements  would 
have  been  unacceptable  in  the  emancipated  circle  where 
his  chief  influence  lay.     He  was  advanced,  yet  not  too, 
advanced.     The  ultra-orthodox  condemned  him  and  re- 
garded him  as  "a  dangerous  man";  but  he  was  dan-, 
gerous  only  to  superstition  and  narrow-minded  secta- 
rianism.   He  held  firmly  the  faith  which  was  fast  dying. 
to  that  generation,  with  no  disposition  to  release,  his. 
grasp  on  the  old  before  he  was  secure  in  his  possession  of- 
the  new.    Thus  his  teaching  was  a  well  graduated  ant^, 
dote  to  the  crass  infidelity  which  in  so  many  quarters 
followed  upon  the  revelations  of  the  new  empiricism.    It 
was  free;  yet  it  was  not  lost  in  a  maze  of, half-grasped 
novelties  of  thought.     The  character  of  bus  teaching  in 
general  is  ample  assurance  that  his  religious  instruction 
would  not  be  vague  or  lacking  in  posltiveness,  or  in 
application  to  conduct ;  he  led  his  disciples,  and  securely 
led  them,  along  those  higher  ranges  of.  religious  con- 
templation where  philosophy  and  worship  coalesce.    Sec-. 
tarians  might  charge  the  university  with  impiety;  but. 
they  could  not  make  the  charge  with  justice  against  the 
university  of  Bascom ;  it  was  religious  in  a  worthier  tense 
than  they  could  well  understand. 

Such,  in  brief  and  all  too  general  terms,  was  the  in- 
fluence of  John  Bascom.  And  yet  it  would  be  extrava- 
gant to  suppose  that  so  sweeping  a  change  as  that  which 
took  place  in  the  temper  of  the  university  could  have 
been  accomplished  by  the  president  alone.  Bascom 's 
teaching  was  an  important  fact,  it  was  the  central  fact 
in  the  intellectual  progress  of  the  university;  but  it. 


232  WISCONSIN 

could  not  have  prospered  as  it  did,  had  not  the  com- 
munity been  in  a  measure  prepared  to  receive  it,  and  it 
could  not  have  so  prospered  without  the  cooperation  of 
a  somewhat  unusual  faculty. 

The  small  faculty  inherited  from  Chadbourne  re- 
mained unchanged,  save  for  the  addition  of  a  few 
younger  instructors,  until  the  middle  of  Bascom's  term. 
Then,  on  the  eve  of  a  considerable  expansion  of  the 
teaching  staff,  came  several  deaths.  With  the  filling  of 
these  places  and  of  new  chairs  of  instruction  by  the 
advancement  of  the  younger  men  and  by  fresh  importa- 
tions, the  faculty  of  the  second  half  of  the  administration 
was  substantially  altered  from  that  of  its  earlier  years. 
The  death  of  Professor  S.  H.  Carpenter  came  close  upon 
that  of  his  friend  Feuling,  in  1878;  Major  Nicodemus 
died  early  in  the  following  year,  and  little  more  than  a 
year  later  came  that  of  James  C.  Watson,  the  new  pro- 
fessor of  Astronomy.  Already  well-known  in  his  field, 
the  last  named  was  cut  down  in  the  midst  of  preparations 
which  promised  for  him  still  further  distinguished  work 
as  director  of  Washburn  Observatory.  He  was  suc- 
ceeded by  Edward  S.  Holden,  who  had  been  trained  in 
the  Observatory  at  West  Point. 

Major  Nicodemus  had  successfully  piloted  the  engi- 
neering courses  through  their  early  stages,  had  dis- 
charged with  firmness  and  tact  the  difficult  duties  of 
the  military  department,  and  had  widely  endeared  him- 
self by  gracious  personal  qualities.  With  his  passing, 
the  special  relation  between  the  military  and  engineer- 
ing departments  came  to  an  end.  Allan  D.  Conover  was 
promoted  to  the  professorship  of  Engineering  and,  for 
military  instruction,  the  university  again  became  de- 
pendent upon  army  detail. 

Professor  Feuling  was  a  Swiss  who  had  enjoyed  the 


GROWING  UP  233 

advantages  of  several  foreign  universities  and  was  a  com- 
petent philologist.  His  musical  knowledge  had  made 
him,  in  an  accessory  way,  of  service  to  the  university 
when  there  was  no  special  department  of  music. 
William  H.  Rosenstengel,  as  professor  of  German,  suc- 
ceeded to  the  main  burden  of  his  work;  he  was  a  mar- 
tinet of  the  gymnasium  pattern,  a  sharp,  effective  class- 
room drillmaster.  Students  of  the  next  twenty  years 
would  find  a  history  deficient  which  contained  no  refer- 
ence to  "Rosie"  and  his  "Esel-buch."  Professor  S.  H. 
Carpenter  was  generally  regarded,  at  the  time  of  his 
death;  as  "the  most  popular  teacher  in  the  university." 
An  ardent  and  impulsive  temperament  and  outspoken, 
if  sometimes  hasty,  convictions  secured  him  the  warm 
adherence  of  his  pupils.  He  was  an  enthusiastic  student 
of  ancient  and  of  French  literature  and  possessed,  for 
that  time,  a  considerable  knowledge  of  old  and  middle 
English,  publishing  two  or  three  textbooks  in  this  field, 
of  which  the  most  successful  was  his  English  of  the 
Fourteenth  Century.  He  was,  also,  an  exceptionally 
fine  teacher  of  Logic.  Carpenter's  Chaucer  tradition  was 
continued  by  John  C.  Freeman,  who  from  the  teaching 
of  Greek  in  the  (old)  Chicago  University  had  turned  to 
the  teaching  of  English  and  now  adapted  himself  to  the 
requirements  of  a  new  chair  in  English  Literature. 

From  these  years  dated,  also,  the  professorships  of 
David  B.  Frankenburger  in  Rhetoric  and  Oratory; 
Rasmus  B.  Anderson  in  Scandinavian ;  Edward  T.  Owen 
in  French;  Edward  A.  Birge  in  Zoology;  Fletcher  A. 
Parker  in  Music ;  and  William  A.  Henry  in  Botany  and 
Agriculture.  About  the  same  time,  chiefly  in  the  year 
1879,  began  the  instructorships  of  Lucius  Heritage  in 
Latin,  William  H.  Williams  in  Greek,  Storm  Bull  in 
Engineering,   George  C.  Comstock  in  Astronomy,  and 


234  WISCONSIN 

Charles  R.  Van  Hise  in  Metallurgy.  To  those  who  are 
unfamiliar  with  the  history  of  the  university  it  would 
be  an  arduous  task  to  bring  home  the  significance  of  this 
catalogue.  Suffice  it  to  point  out,  that  the  list  containa 
the  names  of  numerous  professors  of  definite  idiosyn- 
crasy, each  of  whom  made  for  himself  a  special  place  in 
the  life  of  the  institution ;  that  it  contains,  also,  the  name 
of  the  creator  of  the  College  of  Agriculture,  now  dean 
emeritus ;  of  the  present  director  of  Washburn  Observa- 
tory and  dean  of  the  Graduate  School;  of  the  recent 
dean  of  the  central  college  who,  after  almost  lifelong 
service  in  that  capacity,  has  become  president;  and 
lastly,  the  name  of  the  late  President  Van  Hise,  who  had 
served  the  university  in  that  office  more  years  than  any 
predecessor. 

On  its  scholarly  side,  Bascom's  main  ambition  for  the 
university  worked  toward  the  creation  of  new  chairs,  not 
so  much  for  the  enlargement  of  instruction  as  for  its 
subdivision,  with  the  aim  that  all  the  important  teaching 
should  be  in  the  hands  of  men  of  specific  learning  and 
of  full  professorial  caliber.  It  was  an  idea  which  under 
the  conditions  of  his  day  could  be  approximately  real- 
ized and  was  realized,  in  considerable  measure,  through 
the  appointments  noted  above.  Of  subsequent  extensions 
into  new  fields  the  most  important  were  the  establishment 
of  a  course  in  Pharmacy  under  Frederick  B.  Power 
(1883),  the  appointment  of  John  W.  Stearns  (1884)  to 
a  professorship  in  the  Science  and  Art  of  Teaching,  and 
the  foundation  of  the  Agricultural  Experiment  Station 
(1883),  and  the  Farmers'  Institutes  (1885).  The  ap- 
pointment of  William  Trelease  to  a  professorship  in 
Botany  enabled  Professor  Henry  to  devote  his  whole 
strength  to  the  development  of  the  Agricultural  depart- 
ment.   The  same  year  Henry  P.  Armsby  was  appointed 


GEOWING  UP  235 

to  the  new  professorship  of  Agricultural  Chemistry 
which  passed,  in  1888,  to  Stephen  M.  Babcock.  These 
enlargements  of  the  scope  of  the  university  were  made 
possible  through  the  increased  revenue  voted  by  the 
legislature  of  1883. 

A  few  other  important  changes  in  the  faculty  occurred 
near  the  end  of  Bascom's  administration.  Edward  S. 
Holden,  director  of  Washburn  (1881-85),  left  to  become 
director  of  the  Lick  Observatory,  and  the  same  year 
Trelease  was  called  to  the  directorship  of  the  Missouri 
Botanic  Gardens,  at  St.  Louis.  Death  ended,  in  1884, 
the  long  service  of  Sterling  and  he  was  succeeded  in  the 
chair  of  Mathematics  by  Charles  A.  Van  Velzer.  Less 
to  be  expected  was  the  sudden  end  which  overtook 
Irving,  Heritage,  and  Allen  within  three  years  after 
Bascom  left.  Irving  died  in  May,  1888,  and  Allen  in 
December,  1889.  Though  Allen  was  by  much  the  older 
man  and  though  their  work  was  as  unlike  in  character 
as  in  subject-matter,  these  two  had  this  in  common,  that 
both  were  conspicuous  above  their  contemporaries  for 
scholarly  achievement  and  for  the  communication  of  the 
scholarly  spirit.  The  seal  too  early  set  on  their  careers, 
so  nearly  at  the  same  time,  and  so  near  the  end  of 
Bascom's  administration,  has  caused  their  names  to  be 
linked  indissolubly  with  each  other  and  to  confer  all  their 
luster  upon  that  period.1 

Of  President  Bascom's  dealings  with  the  faculty  it  has 
not  been  customary  to  say  very  much.  He  himself  en- 
tirely ignores  this  relationship  in  his  reminiscences, 
though  he  fully  discusses  his  relation  to  the  students 
and  to  the  governing  board.  This  may  have  no  signifi- 
cance beyond  the  fact  that,  instinctively,  contrasting  as 
he  did  the  western  state  university  with  the  eastern  col- 

1  For  Irving,  see  ante,  p.  185.    For  Allen,  see  chap,  x,  p.  185. 


236  WISCONSIN 

lege,  he  found  less  to  remark  in  the  faculty  than  in  the 
other  two  of  the  three  estates.  His  estimate  of  the  gen- 
eral quality  of  the  instruction  was  high,  and  his  reviews 
of  the  labors  of  such  men  as  Carpenter,  Sterling,  Irving, 
and  Heritage  at  the  time  of  their  deaths,  indicate  that  he 
was  not  indifferent  to  the  achievements  of  individuals; 
but  it  was  not  the  nature  of  his  mind  to  throw  great 
stress  upon  personal  matters.  Perhaps  the  most  incisive 
statement  of  his  ideas  as  to  the  relation  which  should 
exist  between  president  and  faculty  in  the  conduct  of  a 
college  is  to  be  found  in  his  response  for  the  Williams 
faculty  at  the  inauguration  of  Chadbourne,  shortly  be- 
fore he  himself  went  to  Wisconsin : 

"As  Professors  we  have  been  wont  to  do  each  in  his 
own  department  what  was  right  in  his  own  eyes,  and  he 
who  has  the  power  to  teach  must  find  this  liberty  his  first 
condition  of  success.  He  who  requires  dictation  is  unfit 
for  instruction.  We  do  not  see  how  the  public,  or  any 
portion  of  it,  shall  say  to  a  college  professor  what  or  how 
he  shall  teach,  what  opinions  he  shall  hold,  and  when  and 
where  he  shall  express  them,  unless  they  wish  to  degrade 
a  branch  of  knowledge,  or  make  its  impartation  con- 
temptible. When  one  is  called  to  a  professorship  these 
subsidiary  questions  are  settled,  and  he  is  then  accepted 
in  the  freedom  and  integrity  and  totality  of  his  man- 
hood. , 

"The  second  point  is  scarcely  less  important.  It  mat- 
ters little  how  skillful  may  be  subordinate  service,  if  the 
vessel  itself  is  to  be  run  on  a  rock.  The  value  of  the  life- 
work  of  every  professor  is  dependent,  in  the  first  in- 
stance, on  his  own  skill,  in  the  second  instance  on  the 
able,  successful  administration  of  the  college  to  which  he 
belongs.  It  is  not  strange,  then,  that  he  should  covet  the 
right  to  be  heard  in  its  concerns,  since  these  concerns  are 


GROWING  UP  237 

his  concerns,  in  a  most  immediate  and  weighty  sense  .  .  . 
There  is  no  room  here  for  jealousies,  for  assertion  of 
slight  authority.  The  college  is  intrusted  to  the  concord 
and  wisdom  of  grave  and  unimpassioned  men.  The 
President  is  a  leader  among  equals,  the  weight  of  whose 
words  is  more  that  of  wisdom  than  of  authority. ' ' 

These  words  produced  a  sensation  when  they  were 
delivered ;  but  their  sharpness  was  entirely  due  to  that 
quality  of  mind  which  frequently  caused  the  speaker  to 
be  more  concerned  with  the  adequate  statement  of  a 
truth  than  with  the  amenities  of  an  occasion.  It  is  open 
for  the  cynic  to  inquire  how  far  the  convictions  of  Bas- 
com  the  professor  were  retained  by  Bascom  the  presi- 
dent. There  is  no  question  that  some  members  of  his 
faculty  felt,  rather  uncomfortably  at  times,  "that  com- 
bined quickness  of  intellect,  promptness  of  decision,  and 
power  of  movement  which  made  him  hard  to  influence 
and  difficult  to  turn,"1  and  that  they  sometimes  found 
his  astonishing  impersonality  a  bit  disconcerting.  One 
of  the  older  professors  has  recalled,  as  a  tribute  to  Car- 
penter's courage  and  independence,  that  he  was  known 
"  to  beard  Bascom  in  a  faculty  meeting."  But  the 
faculty  saw  more  of  him  than  did  the  regents  and 
under  more  favorable  auspices,  and  were  better  fitted 
to  understand  him.  And  whatever  might  be  the 
force  with  which  he  advanced  his  opinion,  he  encour- 
aged in  the  teaching  corps  a  fullness  of  deliberation  and 
a  democratic  participation  in  the  government  of  the 
university  which  has  become  traditional  in  the  Wisconsin 
faculty,  and  makes  it  impatient  of  anything  which  looks 
toward  autocracy  in  academic  matters.  When,  a  few 
years  later,  President  Adams  undertook  to  introduce  the 
senate  form  of  government,  he  found  this  tradition  so 

1  President  Birge,  in  the  address  quoted  above. 


238  WISCONSIN 

firmly  entrenched  and  defended  with  so  much  spirit  that 
he  speedily  abandoned  the  project.  Even  to  the  present 
day,  though  at  some  sacrifice  of  time  and  efficiency,  the 
faculty  has  preserved  its  democratic  form  of  government. 
And  as  the  university  has  grown  in  size  and  complexity, 
the  same  principle  has  been  extended,  in  the  majority  of 
cases,  into  its  divisions  and  departments.  In  this  demo- 
cratic spirit  President  Bascom  and  his  faculty  worked 
together,  if  not  with  a  strong  sense  of  personal  sym- 
pathy, with  a  strong  sense  of  professional  cordiality, 
and  hence  vigorously  and  enthusiastically,  toward  the 
same  ends.  He  did  not  interfere  with  anybody's  teach- 
ing; he  "worked  in  his  place  and  expected  others  to 
work  in  theirs."  And  so  it  was  the  work  of  the  faculty, 
held  together  by  the  president's  counsel  and  inspired  and 
supplemented  by  his  example,  that  carried  the  university 
on  to  a  more  strenuous  life  of  teaching  and  study;  nor 
more  strenuous  merely,  but  a  life  more  deeply  conscious 
of  the  worth  and  the  delight  of  intellectual  pursuits  and 
of  the  social  responsibilities  which  intellectual  posses- 
sions entail  upon  the  individual. 

President  Bascom  tendered  his  resignation  early  in 
1886,  to  take  effect  a  year  from  the  following  June.  Dif- 
ficulties with  the  regents  had  made  his  work  increasingly 
arduous  and  he  had  resolved  to  retire  while  he  could  do 
so  voluntarily.  Had  he  been  disposed  to  fight  he  could 
probably  have  won;  but  a  personal  fight  was  not  to  his 
taste  and,  as  the  time  was  not  far  distant  which  he  had 
originally  set  for  himself  as  the  limit  of  his  tenure,  he 
did  not  feel  it  incumbent  upon  him  to  continue  the  strife. 
Judge  Keyes  and  his  party  in  the  board  of  regents  would 
gladly  have  scored  on  the  president  by  making  his  resig- 
nation immediately  effective ;  but  President  Chamberlin, 
after  he  had  been  elected  to  succeed  Bascom,  refused  to 


GROWING  UP  239 

lend  himself  to  this  project,  and  the  opposition  were 
obliged  to  content  themselves  with  an  ambiguous  victory. 
Bascom  retired  in  good  order,  with  all  his  pieces  un- 
silenced. 

The  most  definite  ground  of  objection  to  Bascom,  on 
the  part  of  his  enemies  in  the  board,  had  been  his  im- 
politic advocacy  of  prohibition;  but  the  opposition  was 
really  grounded  in  something  more  fundamental  and  far- 
reaching  of  which  this  was  only  an  exemplification.  Be- 
tween Bascom  and  the  republican  "old  guard"  of  the 
state  there  could  oe  no  sympathy  or  even  compromise; 
by  temperament,  personal  ideals,  and  conceptions  of  the 
social  order,  they  were  widely  separated.  The  hostility 
to  Bascom  found  opportunity  to  manifest  itself  when  he 
returned  to  Madison  in  June,  1890,  to  deliver  the  annual 
address  before  the  university  Law  Class.  His  return  was 
the  occasion  of  an  ovation  on  the  part  of  his  student 
following;  but  his  address  was  virulently  attacked  by  a 
faction  of  the  press.  A  decision  of  the  courts  in  "The 
Edgerton  Bible  Case,"  whereby  the  Bible  was  excluded 
from  the  public  schools,  had  been  sustained  recently  by 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  state.  Bascom  devoted  a 
portion  of  his  address  to  a  dignified,  but  vigorous  de- 
nunciation of  the  decision.  He  was  bitterly  arraigned 
for  having  chosen  a  peculiarly  inappropriate  occasion  on 
which  to  display  his  lack  of  reverence  for  the  supreme 
tribunal  of  the  commonwealth.  The  summary,  ' '  Bascom 
Boils  Over,"  which  heads  the  State  Journal's  report  of 
the  address,  indicates  very  accurately  the  tone  of  the 
attack  on  the  former  president  of  the  university.  The 
entire  incident  displays,  to  good  advantage,  Bascom 's 
capacity  for  "stirring  things  up,"  and  also,  the  nature 
of  the  opposition  which  he  inspired. 

But  the  days  of  the  "old  guard"  were  numbered. 


240  WISCONSIN 

The  preceding  autumn  had  produced  Judge  Keyes '  val( 
dictory  to  the  institution.  It  had  become  traditional  fo 
the  "Boss"  to  signalize  his  relation  to  the  university  b\ 
delivering  an  "annual  address"  to  the  sophomores  and 
freshmen  of  the  military  department.  The  writer  was 
an  innocent  witness  of  the  last  of  these  occasions.  The 
sophomores  and  freshmen,  in  military  array,  had  been 
rounded-up  in  old  Library  Hall.  Judge  Keyes  appeared 
and  took  the  platform.  He  was  welcomed  with  an  aston- 
ishing explosion  of  applause.  The  Judge  acknowledged 
the  ovation  in  a  pleased  manner  and  advanced  to  the 
front  of  the  platform ;  but  he  no  sooner  opened  his  mouth 
to  speak,  than  it  became  evident  that  the  applause  was 
ironic.  Every  phrase  was  followed  at  first  by  noisy 
hand-clapping  and  soon  by  the  stamping  and  scraping 
of  feet.  As  the  situation  dawned  upon  him,  the  Judge 
became  confused,  hesitated,  and  finally  produced  a 
manuscript  from  his  pocket.  This  action  was  greeted 
with  riotous  demonstrations  of  delight.  But  the  reading 
was  not  allowed  to  proceed;  every  phrase  was  now  fol- 
lowed by  a  unison  of  cheers  and  cat-calls.  At  last,  his 
patience  exhausted,  the  Judge  pocketed  his  paper, 
shouted  a  few  angry  sentences  which  were  drowned  in 
the  uproar,  and  quickly  left  the  hall.  Never  since  has 
the  university  been  imposed  upon  by  a  similar  assump- 
tion of  importance  on  the  part  of  an  outside  officer.  "0 
Julius  Ceesar,  thou  art  mighty  yet,"  one  could  have  ex- 
claimed to  the  shade  of  John  Bascom.  He  had  left 
behind  "powers  that  would  work  for  him,"  not  only 
in  the  university,  but  in  the  state. 


H 
i— i 
w 

> 


TOWARDS  A  UNIVERSITY 

The  commonwealth  universities  made  rapid  strides 
during  the  last  decade  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Al- 
though not  confined  to  the  Middle  West,  the  movement 
was  especially  characteristic  of  that  region  and  espe- 
cially vigorous  there.  The  peculiar  development  of  these 
institutions  was  in  part  the  result  of  economic  factors, 
and  in  part  it  was  favored  by  intellectual  tendencies 
throughout  the  country.  The  economic  progress  of  the 
eighties,  so  far  as  it  was  typified  in  Wisconsin,  was 
described  at  the  beginning  of  the  last  chapter.  During 
the  next  few  years  the  civilization  of  the  Middle  West 
underwent  a  quick  transformation.  The  westering  tide 
of  population  had  reached  the  farthest  verge  of  the  con- 
tinent and  was  beginning  to  dam  back  in  the  rich 
territory  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  and  the  Great  Lakes. 
Cities  which  had  sprung  up  chiefly  as  trading  centers 
for  the  reception  and  expedition  of  foodstuffs  and  other 
relatively  raw  products,  now  became  centers  of  manu- 
facture as  well  as  of  distribution.  Splendid  as  the  pine 
forests  of  the  Northwest  had  been,  it  was  becoming  evi- 
dent that  they  were  not  inexhaustible,  and  the  more 
far-sighted  of  their  exploiters  were  turning  more  and 
more  to  manufacture  and  to  the  purchase  of  more  distant 
supplies  of  timber.  The  mineral  ranges  to  the  north 
and  west  were  being  opened  and  worked  on  a  large 
scale.     Transportation   alone,   with  the  accompanying 

241 


242  WISCONSIN 

manufacture  of  railway  supplies,  was  becoming  a  major 
industry.  After  a  long  lull,  railway  extension  revived  in 
the  eighties.  For  some  years  Wisconsin  farmers  had 
been  crowding  into  Minnesota  and  the  Dakotas.  Now  the 
railroads  pushed  northward,  opening  up  to  agricultural 
improvement  the  cut-over  lands  of  the  central  and  north- 
ern parts  of  the  state.  New  conditions  enforced  new 
methods.  Even  in  the  younger  parts  of  the  Middle 
West  the  best  lands  had  now  been  farmed  for  a  gen- 
eration. As  the  population  became  denser,  and  land 
both  dearer  and  poorer,  progressive  farmers  began  to 
see  the  expediency  of  marketing  their  produce  in  more 
condensed  forms  and  to  realize  the  necessity  of  applying 
more  scientific  methods  to  all  the  operations  of  the 
farm.  These  conditions  in  industry  and  in  agriculture 
favored  the  support  of  technical  research  and  educa- 
tion; prosperity  made  them  feasible,  and  the  spread  of 
intelligence  made  them  sought  after.  The  accumulation 
of  wealth  increased  the  demand  for  higher  education  in 
general. 

No  less  important  was  the  improvement  in  the  educa- 
tion that  was  offered,  particularly  in  technical  subjects. 
Within  a  few  years  important  advances  had  been  made 
in  the  training  of  university  teachers.  The  foundation 
of  Johns  Hopkins,  in  1876,  and  its  subsequent  success 
had  given  an  impetus  to  specialization  and  research, 
both  in  the  sciences  and  in  the  new  humanities.  Con- 
tact with  the  German  university  and  real-schule  had 
intensified  the  insistence  upon  research  and  upon  special 
preparation  for  advanced  teaching.  Harvard  and  Co- 
lumbia soon  put  their  shoulders  to  the  wheel,  and  when, 
in  1892,  the  new  University  of  Chicago  was  founded, 
this  tendency  became  manifest  in  the  stress  laid  upon 
graduate  work ;  but  before  this  happened  the  movement 


TOWARDS  A  UNIVERSITY  243 

had  already  shown  itself  in  several  state  institutions. 
By  1890,  the  solidity  of  the  state  universities  was  firmly 
established.  Michigan  had  long  been  favorably  known, 
both  for  its  academic  and  its  professional  departments. 
The  collegiate  teaching  of  several  other  institutions  of 
this  class,  notably  of  California  and  "Wisconsin,  was  by 
this  time  on  a  sound  basis.  Though  not  precisely  a 
state  university,  Cornell,  with  its  sudden  and  brilliant 
popular  appeal,  furnished  an  influential  example  of  the 
college  of  liberal  arts  in  combination  with  flourishing 
practical  courses  in  engineering  and  agriculture.  In 
the  expansion  of  the  typical  state  universities,  vertically 
toward  graduate  study  and  research,  and  horizontally 
into  the  applications  of  learning  to  the  business  of  life, 
Wisconsin  was  now  to  play  a  leading  part.  The  ideal 
had  been  implicit  from  the  start;  it  had  even  been 
realized  in  some  small  measure ;  it  was  now  to  be  realized 
extensively. 

This  stir  of  the  outward  world,  the  stir  of  the  world 
of  business,  and  industry,  and  opulence,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  stir  of  the  new,  strenuous,  cosmopolitan  world 
of  scholarship  and  scientific  research  on  the  other,  con- 
verged upon  the  quiet,  cultivated  parochialism  of  the 
earlier  university,  permeated  it,  dissolved  it,  and  brought 
to  the  Wisconsin  campus  and  the  Wisconsim  classrooms, 
in  a  very  few  years,  a  very  different  life  and  a  dif- 
ferent spirit.  This  is  neither  said  in  lament,  nor  in  cele- 
bration ;  it  is  a  statement  of  what  occurred.  And  what 
occurred  here,  is  what  occurred  in  some  measure,  sooner 
or  later,  in  most  American  institutions  of  learning. 

The  period  of  transition  with  which  this  chapter  is 
concerned  occupies  sixteen  academic  years.  It  carries 
us  past  the  turn  of  the  century,  past  the  first  half  cen- 
tury of  university  existence,  and  embraces  two  presi- 


244  WISCONSIN 

dential  administrations  and  an  acting-presidency.  From 
1887  to  1892,  the  president  of  the  university  was  Thomas 
Chrowder  Chamberlin.  He  was  succeeded  by  Charles 
Kendall  Adams  whose  administration  lasted  nearly  ten 
years,  ending  (technically)  January  21,  1902.  Dr. 
Birge  was  acting  president  during  most  of  President 
Adams'  last  two  years  and  for  a  year  following.  An- 
other era  commences  with  the  election  of  President  Van 
Hise  in  1903.  For  the  period  covered  by  the  present 
chapter,  the  executive  administration  does  not  provide 
a  satisfactory  chronological  unit.  President  Chamber- 
lin 's  administration,  though  highly  efficient,  was  too 
short  to  be  conveniently  treated  by  itself;  that  of  Dr. 
Birge  was  tentative  and  still  shorter;  that  of  President 
Adams  lies  awkwardly  between  the  two.  If,  however, 
we  take  President  Chamberlin 's  first  year  as  a  point  of 
departure,  there  follow  three  equal  intervals  of  five 
years,  of  which  the  first  is  coterminous  with  his  adminis- 
tration, in  the  sense  that  the  progress  of  the  university 
under  his  leadership  is  registered  in  the  first  year  of 
his  successor.  The  remainder  of  the  period  divides  ap- 
propriately into  two  five-year  intervals  which  readily 
lend  themselves  to  purposes  of  comparison. 

Before  entering  upon  the  details  of  the  period  which 
has  just  been  outlined,  it  will  not  be  altogether  a  digres- 
sion to  notice,  side  by  side,  the  two  men  who  were  chiefly 
responsible  for  the  conduct  of  the  institution  during 
this  period.  Thomas  Chrowder  Chamberlin  had  passed 
most  of  his  life  within  the  boundaries  of  the  state. 
After  graduating  from  Beloit  College  he  had  served  two 
years  as  principal  of  a  high  school  and  spent  one  year 
in  special  study  at  the  University  of  Michigan.  Re- 
turning to  the  state  as  teacher  of  natural  science  at  the 
"Whitewater  Normal  School,  he  continued  his  scientific 


TOWARDS  A  UNIVERSITY  245 

studies  independently  and  became,  four  years  later,  pro- 
fessor of  Geology  at  Beloit.  In  1876,  at  the  age  of 
thirty-three,  he  was  appointed  chief  geologist  of  the 
state  and  in  that  position  edited  the  Geology  of  Wis- 
consin (1877-83),  in  four  large  volumes  and  an  atlas. 
At  the  time  of  his  election  he  was  with  the  U.  S.  Geo- 
logical Survey  as  chief  of  the  glacial  division.  Though 
his  work  in  the  presidency  gave  him  no  occasion  for 
discouragement,  the  tasks  of  administration  did  not 
content  him  and,  on  being  invited  to  join  the  staff  of  the 
new  University  of  Chicago  as  head  of  the  department  of 
Geology,  he  embraced  the  opportunity  to  continue  his 
scientific  career. 

President  Chamberlin  seemed  to  have,  by  nature,  the 
university  instinct.  With  him  all  knowledge  took  on 
inevitably  the  scientific  form.  Every  problem  was  ap- 
proached by  the  path  of  investigation  and  examined  in 
the  light  of  clear  reason.  Prejudice,  even  prejudice  in 
favor  of  science,  so  far  as  this  was  humanly  possible, 
was  rigorously  excluded.  At  the  time  of  his  connec- 
tion with  the  university,  he  seemed  to  those  who  viewed 
him  from  afar,  equally  unhampered  and  unassisted  by 
sentiment  or  irony.  Naturally  his  influence  made  itself 
felt  most  powerfully  among  his  colleagues  of  the  upper 
faculty  who  were  best  fitted  to  comprehend  processes 
of  this  sort  and  to  sympathize  with  this  tone  of  mind. 
His  clear  reasonableness  probably  appealed,  also,  to  his 
business  associates  in  the  board  of  regents,  for  he  readily 
won  them  to  his  purposes.  To  undergraduates,  and 
perhaps  to  the  general  public,  he  seemed  too  distant 
and  impersonal.  Only  those  who  were  fortunate  enough 
to  come  to  close  quarters  with  him  could  catch  a  hint  of 
that  softer  nature  which  has  ripened  into  the  radiant 
graciousness  of  his  later  character.    His  genuine  intel- 


246  WISCONSIN 

lectual  ardor  was  not  perceptible  through  the  scientific 
medium  in  which  he  clothed  his  ideas,  and  his  ethical 
conceptions  seemed  correspondingly  lacking  in  famili- 
arity and  warmth.  His  thought  was  reasonable,  but 
bleak;  commanded  respect,  but  awakened  little  enthusi- 
asm of  assent.  Considering  that  his  great  service  to  the 
university  lay  in  other  directions,  this  was,  for  the  time 
being  at  least,  of  little  moment.  Indeed,  the  absence 
of  sentiment  in  Chamberlin's  manner  of  meeting  the 
students  had,  in  one  way,  the  virtue  of  a  positive 
quality.  It  introduced  a  new  style  of  academic  dig- 
nity, in  keeping  with  some  of  his  cool  innovations,  such 
as  the  abandonment  of  Bascom's  personal  excuse  system, 
the  enlistment  of  the  police  to  suppress  hazing,  and  the 
substitution  of  a  learned  address  for  the  time-honored 
rhetorical  exercises  of  Commencement  Day.  Whether 
deserved  or  not,  the  president's  reputation  for  unap- 
proachableness  served  its  turn  in  marking  the  change 
from  the  old  intimate  life  of  the  college  to  the  new 
and  larger  life  of  the  university. 

The  next  president  carried  on  the  university  tradi- 
tion, but  in  a  very  different  manner,  because  of  very 
different  personal  characteristics.  Charles  Kendall 
Adams  began  life  as  a  farm  boy  in  Vermont,  and  his 
early  education  was  bought  with  hard  manual  labor 
and  severe  self-denial.  It  was  not  until  his  twenty- 
seventh  year  that  he  succeeded  in  "working  his  way" 
through  the  University  of  Michigan,  graduating  in  1861. 
Joining  the  faculty  of  his  Alma  Mater,  as  instructor  in 
Latin  and  History,  he  was  advanced  within  half  a  dozen 
years  to  a  full  professorship  in  History.  Before  set- 
tling to  the  duties  of  this  post,  he  spent  a  year  and  a 
half  in  Europe,  studying  in  German  universities  and 
traveling  in  France  and  Italy.    On  his  return,  he  intro- 


TOWARDS  A  UNIVERSITY  247 

dueed  the  German  seminar  method  at  Ann  Arbor.  He 
soon  attained  a  position  of  influence  in  his  faculty  and 
became,  in  course  of  time,  dean  of  the  School  of  Po- 
litical Science.  In  1885,  he  succeeded  Andrew  D. 
White  as  president  of  Cornell  University  in  which  he 
had  been,  for  some  years,  non-resident  lecturer  in  His- 
tory. The  years  at  Cornell  were  among  the  most  agi- 
tated, but  the  most  constructive  years  of  his  life.  His 
election  had  been  carried  by  the  retiring  president 
against  a  strong  opposing  faction  and  the  bitterness 
engendered  in  the  contest  never  wholly  died  out.  Re- 
newed disturbances  led  to  his  resignation  in  1892.  Not- 
withstanding much  unpleasantness,  Cornell  made  dis- 
tinguished progress  under  his  leadership.  Indeed,  the 
conflict  which  characterized  his  administration  was,  in 
large  part,  due  to  the  sturdy  measures  by  which  this 
progress  was  brought  about. 

President  Adams'  scholarly  reputation  rested  chiefly 
upon  two  works,  a  monograph,  Democracy  and  Mon- 
archy in  France  (1872)  and  a  Manual  of  Historical 
Literature  (1882,  1889),  and  upon  his  success  as  a 
teacher  and  lecturer.  Both  as  a  writer  and  as  a  teacher 
his  work  was  rather  solid  than  brilliant.  His  learning 
was  more  extensive  than  profound,  though  his  mono- 
graph won  him  considerable  reputation  for  astuteness  as 
a  political  critic.  His  historical  manual  was  a  pioneer 
of  its  class  in  this  country.  A  charge  of  plagiarism, 
lodged  against  his  monograph  by  an  irresponsible  con- 
tributor to  the  Nation,  was  shown  to  be  fantastic;  but 
the  slander  was  periodically  revived  by  his  enemies. 
For  it  was  characteristic  of  him  that  he  acquired  per- 
sistent enemies  as  well  as  devoted  friends.  Happily  the 
latter  were  the  more  conspicuous  at  Wisconsin.  Of 
university  matters,  President  Adams  not  only  had  the 


248  WISCONSIN 

intimate  knowedge  gained  from  his  experiences  at 
Michigan  and  Cornell ;  he  had,  also,  a  thorough  historical 
and  theoretical  knowledge  derived  from  the  study  of 
educational  institutions  in  this  country  and  in  Europe. 
His  public  addresses  were  often  virtually  short  treatises 
on  university  education  or  on  the  relations  of  the  uni- 
versity to  the  state.  By  knowledge,  training,  and  con- 
viction, he  was,  as  Dr.  Birge  has  put  it,  "through  and 
through,  a  State  University  man." 

Much  of  the  influence  of  President  Adams  lay  outside 
his  dealings  with  the  central  faculty.  To  the  faculty  he 
seemed  at  times  too  indulgent  toward  student  pec- 
cadilloes, especially  in  athletics,  and  he  was  suspected 
of  a  disposition  to  draw  strength  from  the  traditional 
enemy,  the  students  plus  the  regents.  There  may  have 
mingled  a  tinge  of  worldly  policy  in  his  view  of  uni- 
versity matters  which  would  be  inimical  to  the  faculty 
temper.  In  the  deliberations  of  a  university  faculty — 
of  the  Wisconsin  faculty  at  any  rate — there  is  nothing 
more  ticklish  than  the  argument  from  expediency.  But 
there  was  never  any  long-standing  division,  and  any  dis- 
trust that  may  have  existed  was  more  than  allayed  by 
"his  unfailing  sympathy  with  scholarly  aspirations"1 
and  his  unfaltering  allegiance  to  the  highest  interests  of 
learning.  He  did  have,  however,  a  strong  student  fol- 
lowing of  a  vague  sort.  To  be  sure,  he  was  in  no  sense 
a  popular  orator;  his  platform  style  was  dragging  and 
heavy,  and  the  students  found  his  formal  dissertations 
tedious.  Yet,  though  he  never  "played  to  the  gallery," 
they  instinctively  felt,  and  rightly  felt,  that  he  was  sym- 
pathetic toward  their  lighter  as  well  as  toward  their 
more  serious  interests.  This  was  a  mild  touch  of  human 
frailty   which  they  found  an  agreeable  novelty  in  a 

1  Faculty  Resolutions,  at  the  time  of  his  resignation. 


TOWARDS  A  UNIVERSITY  249 

president.  At  the  same  time,  there  was  a  certain  gran- 
diosity about  him.  His  Jovian  head  went  well  with 
ovations,  and  his  thematic  phrase  "this  g-r-e-a-t  Uni- 
versity," if  not  received  with  uniform  reverence,  pro- 
duced its  effect  in  time.  During  his  first  years  at 
Cornell,  he  had  borne  the  sobriquet  of  "Farmer 
Charlie";  but  to  his  western  constituency,  he  conveyed 
a  suggestion  of  the  man  of  the  world.  Even  the  sack 
coat  and  red  four-in-hand  which  appeared  on  all  but  the 
most  formal  occasions,  were  relished  by  the  younger  race 
who  were  beginning  to  revolt  from  the  f rocked  and  cra- 
vatted  taste  in  college  professors.  This  applied  not  less 
to  the  younger  scholars  of  the  faculty  than  to  the  under- 
graduates, both  classes  rejoicing  in  the  discovery  that 
the  intellectual  life  did  not  universally  condemn  its 
devotees  to  the  styles  of  the  sixties.  The  crude  but 
hearty  salutation,  which  was  the  "rocket"  of  those 
days,  "What's  the  matter  with  Prexy?  He's  all  right! 
Who's  all  right?  Prexy!",  came  to  have  in  it  a  very 
genuine  unction. 

In  his  outside  intercourse  with  men  of  affairs  whose 
actions  and  opinions  were  of  importance  to  the  uni- 
versity, Adams  was  singularly  happy.  He  had  many 
staunch  friends  and  admirers  among  men  of  this  class. 
Here,  his  wide  familiarity  with  similar  institutions,  his  pa- 
tience and  industry  over  material  details,  and  his  homely 
geniality  and  sense  of  human  values  were  inestimably 
serviceable.  He  had  not  been  six  months  in  the  state 
before  he  had  brought  about  a  substantial  enlargement 
of  the  university  income  and  a  new  appropriation  for 
buildings  and  improvements.  And,  notwithstanding 
the  financial  depression  which  prevailed  during  the 
earlier  years  of  his  administration,  each  biennium 
brought  a  further  enhancement  of  revenue,  either  for 


250  WISCONSIN 

buildings  or  support,  or  for  both.  Yet  so  prudently  was 
the  increased  revenue  distributed  that  no  startling  ex- 
penditure was  visible  in  any  single  direction.  Buildings 
and  faculty,  books  and  apparatus,  the  several  depart- 
ments relatively,  were  kept  in  an  even  balance  and  the 
entire  university  was  kept  evenly  and  steadily  growing. 
Thus,  in  the  sphere  of  building,  for  example,  he  began  by 
renovating  and  enlarging  the  structures  already  on  the 
ground,  and  it  was  not  until  the  very  end  of  his  adminis- 
tration, when  the  campus  blossomed  forth  with  several 
new  structures,  that  it  became  almost  suddenly  apparent 
how  completely  the  whole  place  had  been  transformed. 
Between  the  two  presidents  who  shaped  the  course 
of  the  university  in  its  period  of  transition,  the  con- 
trasts, then,  are  obvious.  Chamberlin  came  to  his  com- 
mand a  relatively  young  man  with  no  university  ex- 
perience, but  full  of  ideas,  many  of  which  were  untried. 
The  service  of  Adams  occupied  the  closing  term  of  a  life 
devoted  to  university  teaching  and  administration. 
President  Chamberlin  possessed,  above  all,  the  scien- 
tific spirit,  together  with  a  very  strong  sense  of  its 
efficacy  in  most  of  the  departments  of  life.  The  interests 
of  President  Adams  were  primarily  humane,  social,  and 
political.  Though  not  in  a  direct  or  narrow  way,  each 
applied  his  specific  temper  to  his  administration  of  the 
university.  Chamberlin 's  peculiar  service  lay  in  the  dis- 
tinctness and  magnanimity  with  which  he  was  able  to 
forecast  the  new  functions  of  the  university,  in  the  pene- 
trating logic  with  which  he  outlined  the  institution  to 
meet  its  later  growth,  and  in  the  boldness  with  which  he 
put  his  plans  into  execution.  His  work  was  the  more 
fundamental,  in  a  way,  and  the  more  creative;  but  it 
was  relatively  simple.  The  task  which  fell  to  President 
Adams  was  more  complicated.     It  became  his  share  to 


TOWARDS  A  UNIVERSITY  251 

fill  in  the  outline  that  had  been  sketched  and  carry  for- 
ward to  success  the  work  that  had  been  begun ;  to  enlarge 
the  departments  that  had  been  created,  to  reconcile 
their  conflicting  demands,  to  secure  larger  and  larger 
means  for  their  continuance  and  growth,  to  enrich  and 
control  and  unite  the  new,  more  complex  institution 
that  was  arising.  It  was  a  work  for  experience,  for 
patience,  for  sagacity  born  of  a  wide  knowledge  of  in- 
stitutions and  varied  contacts  with  men. 

There  is  no  more  pregnant  epoch  of  similar  extent  in 
the  history  of  the  university  than  the  five  years  of 
Chamberlin's  presidency.  Men  who  were  about  then, 
saw  the  passing  of  the  old  college,  and  they  saw  the  be- 
ginnings of  the  modern  university.  It  was  an  expansive 
time.  Life  and  innovation  were  in  the  air.  The  state 
was  prosperous  and  had  learned  to  share  fortunes  with 
the  university.  The  new  president  was  "a  Westerner," 
almost,  though  not  quite,  a  native  son. — a  product  of 
western  institutions,  educational  and  other,  in  part  a 
self-made  scholar,  young,  robust,  scientific,  unimpressed 
by  tradition,  his  strong,  unsensitive  face  set  to  the  fu- 
ture, whither  he  turned  the  university.  For  all  his 
intellectual  vigor  and  progressiveness,  Bascom  had 
worked  almost  exclusively  within  the  traditions  of  the 
New  England  college.  He  understood  the  university 
idea;  but  what  he  really  cared  about  was  the  college. 
He  gave  his  strength  to  make  Wisconsin  a  college  such 
as  he  knew  and  believed  in,  and  he  succeeded ;  he  made 
it  a  good  one,  "the  home  of  a  keen  intellectual  life." 
Thus,  the  last  years  of  his  regime  marked  the  culmination 
of  the  entire  earlier  development  of  the  institution. 
The  new  epoch  marked  a  turning-point,  a  sharp  swing 
in  the  road  which  suddenly  brought  into  view  the  vistas 
of  the  future. 


252  WISCONSIN 

The  time  was  favorable,  the  spirit  was  ready,  the 
equipment  was  at  hand,  for  expansion.  And  the  expan- 
sion came,  and  came  swiftly.  Within  five  years,  both 
students  and  faculty  had  more  than  doubled  in  number. 
The  material  university  changed  little  in  outward  ap- 
pearance; the  buildings  just  finished  amply  accommo- 
dated the  new  host  of  students  and  teachers.  But  the 
university  became  far  more  populous;  it  swarmed;  its 
activities  became  more  varied ;  and  this  impressive  live- 
liness inspired  in  a  very  short  time,  a  further  enlarge- 
ment of  its  resources.  Even  more  significant  than  the 
increase  in  numbers  were  the  shrewd  innovations  in 
the  plane  and  method  of  teaching  and  in  the  diversifica- 
tion of  the  fields  of  study  which  soon  transformed  the 
academic  character  of  the  institution.  And  quite  as 
stirring,  in  its  way,  as  the  sudden  increase  in  the  size 
of  the  university  or  the  boldness  of  its  academic  innova- 
tions, was  the  creation  by  the  students  themselves  of  a 
more  enterprising  campus  life.  However  one  may  value 
their  service  to  their  Alma  Mater,  there  was  lavish 
energy  of  spirit  in  the  generation  of  undergraduates  who 
initiated  and  carried  through  the  bustling  development 
in  intercollegiate  athletics  and  other  extra-curricular 
activities,  during  the  early  nineties.  It  was  an  embryo 
university  which  emerged  at  the  end  of  this  time,  but  the 
changes  of  magnitude  and  direction  had  been  decisive. 
Inspiring  possibilities  had  been  disclosed,  and  ways  had 
been  opened,  through  which  the  university  was  to  lay 
some  of  the  main-traveled  roads  of  the  future. 

There  succeeded  five  years, — the  first  of  President 
Adams'  administration — during  which  the  university  re- 
flected, in  some  degree,  the  general  business  depression 
that  followed  the  panic  of  1893.  The  hard  times  of  the 
middle  nineties  modified,  but  did  not  stop,  the  growth  of 


TOWARDS  A  UNIVERSITY  253 

the  university.  Twice,  if  we  very  properly  ignore  the 
increased  attendance  produced  by  the  addition  of  the 
School  of  Music  in  1895,  the  annual  returns  showed  an 
actual  loss  in  numbers  over  the  preceding  year.  During 
the  entire  five-year  period,  omitting  again  the  School  of 
Music,  attendance  increased  about  twenty-six  per  cent; 
whereas  the  increase  of  the  five  years  preceding  had  been 
over  one  hundred  per  cent.  Counting  all  departments, 
the  average  annual  increase  of  the  later  period  was 
ninety-six  against  one  hundred  and  thirty  for  the  period 
preceding.  A  little  more  slowly,  but  surely,  steadily, 
the  university  was  growing. 

The  new  academic  tendencies  and  student  activities 
continued  to  flourish  with  undiminished  vitality.  The 
temporary  stagnation  in  the  outside  world  of  business 
and  industry  probably  favored  the  development  of  ad- 
vanced study;  for  it  reconciled  some  men  to  spending 
a  longer  time  in  preparation  for  life.  Some  of  them  it 
influenced  to  look  more  likingly  upon  professional  or 
academic  pursuits.  It  undoubtedly  retarded  the  de- 
velopment of  the  technical  departments.  Another  in- 
teresting result  of  the  widespread  financial  stringency 
was  its  selective  effect  upon  the  student  personnel. 
Throughout  the  state  and  adjacent  regions  were  families 
of  a  certain  range  of  means,  who,  under  normal  condi- 
tions, would  have  sent  their  sons  and  daughters  to  east- 
ern colleges,  but  now  embraced  the  opportunity  for  a 
respectable  and  less  expensive  education  nearer  home. 
On  the  other  hand,  many  who  might  have  found  their 
way  to  the  university  were  compelled  to  forego  a  col- 
lege education  altogether  or  content  themselves  with  the 
advantages  of  still  humbler  institutions.  These  effects  of 
the  temporary  financial  stringency  combined  with  the 
growing  prestige   and   liveliness   of  the  institution   at 


254  WISCONSIN 

Madison  to  increase  the  proportion  of  its  patrons  who 
represented  the  wealth  and  social  privilege  of  tributary- 
regions.  It  was  the  policy  of  President  Adams  to  foster 
the  patronage  of  this  class,  not  in  a  snobbish  spirit,  but 
in  the  belief  that  it  made  for  a  more  cultivated  tone  in 
college  society.  Although  wealth  and  culture  were  by 
no  means  synonymous  labels,  students  of  this  class  had, 
on  the  average,  a  more  leisurely  attitude  toward  educa- 
tion than  the  edifying  offspring  of  poverty  and  ambition, 
and  their  presence  was,  on  the  whole,  an  encouragement 
to  liberal  studies. 

Of  course  this  group  greatly  stimulated  the  develop- 
ment of  extra-curricular  activities  and  recreations,  and 
was  in  turn  attracted  by  them.  The  development  in  this 
direction  had  been  slower  at  Wisconsin  than  in  many 
neighboring  institutions.  During  the  seventies  and  early 
eighties,  leaders  of  student  opinion  often  disclaimed  any 
desire  to  emulate  the  frivolities  of  the  ' '  rich  men 's  col- 
leges "  in  the  East;  but,  even  before  the  departure  of 
President  Bascom,  student  critics  had  begun  to  upbraid 
their  fellows  for  apathy  in  this  respect.  In  the  early 
nineties  a  great  many  new  activities  were  brought  forth 
with  a  bursting  of  cheers.  Now,  in  the  middle  nineties 
they  flourished  and  burgeoned  with  alarming  vitality, 
and  one  heard  all  the  stock  arguments  in  their  favor. 
The  fallacy,  if  it  be  a  fallacy,  that  the  prowess  of  its 
athletic  teams  is  an  important  factor  in  the  drawing 
power  of  an  institution  of  learning,  never  had  so  many 
devout  adherents  in  and  about  the  univesity  as  at  this 
time.  The  president  of  the  university  was  one  of  the 
believers. 

It  was  perhaps  the  most  brilliant  era  of  Wisconsin 
athletics, — the  time  which,  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
athletic  enthusiast,  "put  Wisconsin  on  the  map."    For 


TOWARDS  A  UNIVERSITY  255 

a  few  years  her  athletic  organizations  performed  with 
a  higher  average  success  in  more  departments  than  those 
of  any  single  rival.  She  became,  in  short,  "the  leading 
athletic  institution"  in  her  territory,  and  boastful  sons 
referred  to  her  as  "the  Yale  of  the  West,"  not  foresee- 
ing the  fickleness  that  resided  in  the  title.  Athletics,  and 
in  fact  all  extra-curricular  activities,  except  for  occa- 
sional assistance  from  devoted  alumni,  were  managed 
entirely  by  the  undergraduates  who  dispersed  the  ever- 
increasing  "gate  receipts"  with  lavish  hands.  Probably 
that  form  of  animal  excitement,  vivified  by  the  senti- 
ment of  loyalty,  which  is  known  as  "college  spirit," 
never  ran  so  high  among  Wisconsin  students  and  alumni 
as  during  these  years.  A  similar  intensity  pervaded  all 
undergraduate  enterprises.  Wisconsin  now  had  "college 
life"  and  had  it  abundantly. 

The  next  five-year  division  carries  us  past  the  resigna- 
tion and  death  of  President  Adams  and  closes  with  the 
end  of  Dr.  Birge's  acting-presidency.  The  era  of  busi- 
ness depression  was  over  and  the  university  shared  in 
the  revived  prosperity  of  the  country.  The  first  year 
of  this  lustrum  (1898-99)  witnessed  a  sudden  accelera- 
tion in  the  increase  of  attendance.  During  the  preceding 
ten  years  there  had  been  a  quiet  growth  in  the  technical 
departments,  but  the  larger  gains  had  come  in  the  cen- 
tral College  of  Letters  and  Science.  The  time  was  now 
at  hand  when  the  most  rapid  expansion  was  to  come  in 
the  technical  departments.  In  Engineering,  the  move- 
ment had  aready  begun ;  during  these  five  years,  attend- 
ance in  that  college  increased  158  per  cent ;  whereas  the 
increase  in  Letters  and  Science  was  only  18  per  cent. 
In  the  same  period  the  enrolment  in  the  College  of 
Agriculture  increased  66  per  cent, — chiefly  in  the  Short 
Course  and  the  Course  in  Dairying.     It  was  not  until 


256  WISCONSIN 

the  last  two  years  of  the  period  that  a  sudden  increase 
of  the  small  number  of  students  in  the  full  college  course 
in  Agriculture  gave  an  indication  of  the  movement 
toward  agricultural  education  that  was  soon  to  take 
place.  The  central  college  was  still  the  largest  division 
of  the  university;  but  by  the  end  of  this  period,  the 
combined  departments  of  Engineering  and  Agriculture 
were  almost  as  numerous,  and  if  we  include  the  College 
of  Law — which  by  this  time  had  been  brought  into  con- 
formity with  the  general  organization  of  the  university 
— the  technical  and  professional  departments  consider- 
ably outnumbered  the  central  college.  Moreover,  for 
several  years,  the  proportion  of  women  in  the  central 
college  had  been  steadily  increasing  and  there  had  ap- 
peared a  tendency  toward  segregation  by  subjects  which 
created  a  perilous  situation  for  liberal  studies,  so  far  as 
the  men  were  concerned.  As  an  offset  to  this  view  of 
the  university,  it  should  be  remembered,  however,  that 
its  divisions  were  less  distinct  than  they  might  appear, 
since  the  technical  students  received  a  large  share  of 
their  instruction  in  fundamental  subjects,  that  is,  mathe- 
matics, English,  foreign  languages,  and  the  sciences,  in 
the  classes  and  laboratories  of  the  College  of  Letters 
and  Science.  Still,  much  of  this  instruction  was  ele- 
mentary in  character,  and  the  interest  of  students  of 
Agriculture  and  Engineering  was  prevailingly  in  their 
applied  subjects.  There  was,  too,  a  clear  trend  toward 
applied  and  vocational  studies  throughout  the  univer- 
sity. After  the  turn  of  the  century,  this  tendency  be- 
came more  pronounced,  until,  in  some  opinions,  it  bade 
fair  to  obliterate  the  ideals  of  liberal  education,  through 
the  invasion  by  vocational  courses  of  the  central  college 
itself, — a  subject  that  will  be  more  fully  considered  in 
a  later  chapter. 


TOWARDS  A  UNIVERSITY  257 

Alongside  of  this  change  in  the  academic  temper  of 
the  university,  there  had  developed  a  disquieting  change 
in  the  spirit  of  student  life  in  general.  More  and  more, 
the  heterogeneity  of  intellectual  aims  and  occupations  on 
the  part  of  students  was  limiting  their  community  of 
interests  to  athletics  and  other  public  activities  and  to 
their  social  recreations.  Because,  partly,  of  the  publicity 
given  to  these  features  of  college  life,  there  was  a  uni- 
versal tendency  to  exaggerate  their  significance  and  there 
was  serious  danger  that,  just  when  the  university,  in 
other  respects,  was  advancing  to  a  higher  plane  and 
quality  of  intellectual  pursuits,  large  masses  of  under- 
graduates, entertaining  an  unspiritual  idea  of  the  pur- 
poses of  education  itself,  would  dissipate  the  precious 
energies  of  college  years  in  purely  extraneous  triviali- 
ties. Tentative  efforts  to  curb  undergraduate  excesses 
in  these  directions  had  been  made ;  but  the  measures  that 
had  been  adopted  were  insufficient.  Now,  the  extrava- 
gance of  social  recreation  and  the  disclosure  of  grave 
defects  in  student  and  alumni  management  of  competi- 
tive athletics  led  to  a  sharp  movement  toward  faculty 
control  of  all  student  activities. 

The  faculty,  too,  upon  which  fell  the  solution  of  these 
problems  was  a  very  different  body  of  men  from  the 
faculty  of  a  few  years  before.  It  was  not  merely  much 
larger;  it  had  changed  very  materially  in  the  character 
of  the  individuals  that  composed  it  and  in  its  manner 
of  dealing  with  students,  both  in  and  out  of  the  class- 
Toom.  The  development  of  graduate  study  and  the 
growth  of  the  university  in  size  and  complexity,  with 
the  progress  of  the  technical  departments,  were  accom- 
panied by  radical  changes  in  the  methods  of  instruction 
and  in  the  composition  and  organization  of  the  teaching 
force.    In  the  central  college,  particularly,  besides  hav- 


258  WISCONSIN 

ing  to  satisfy  a  growing  demand  for  advanced  and 
graduate  courses,  the  faculty  was  confronted  with  a 
formidable  volume  of  elementary  teaching  and,  as  a  con- 
sequence, with  burdens  of  management  which  fore- 
shadowed one  of  the  graver  aspects  of  the  era  that  was 
to  follow. 

"The  University  of  Wisconsin  is  in  that  transitional 
period  in  which  it  is  easy  to  go  either  backward  or  for- 
ward," wrote  John  Bascom,  in  his  farewell  Report  to 
the  board  of  regents.  There  is  no  doubt  of  the  direction 
which  President  Chamberlin  chose  to  pursue.  With 
clearly  denned  purpose  he  set  about  advancing  the  insti- 
tution to  a  university  basis.  More  distinctly  than  any 
predecessor  he  understood  the  university  in  three  dimen- 
sions. He  saw  at  once  the  opportunity  to  extend  it  both 
in  area  and  in  depth.  More  distinctly  than  any  prede- 
cessor, also,  he  grasped  at  once  the  triple  function  of  the 
university,  that  of  undergraduate  and  professional  in- 
struction, that  of  original  investigation  combined  with 
graduate  teaching,  and  that  of  "university  extension," 
or  popular  dissemination  of  the  essentials  of  advanced 
knowledge.  Of  these,  the  distinctively  university  func- 
tion, he  saw,  was  that  of  individual  research  and  leader- 
ship in  original  study,  and  his  dominant  interest  was  in 
the  development  of  the  institution  in  this  plane.  But 
before  this  could  be  accomplished  in  any  notable  degree, 
the  spirit  of  investigation  must  be  conveyed  into  the 
undergraduate  courses  so  that  they  might  lead  up  natu- 
rally, not  in  information  only,  but  in  method,  to  work 
of  the  distinctive  university  type.  In  lateral  exten- 
sions of  the  curriculum,  therefore,  favor  was  shown  to 
subjects  of  study  which  lent  themselves  to  modern 
methods  of  investigation  and  teaching;  or  which,  as  in 
the  technical  departments,  were  most  forward  in  the  ap- 


TOWARDS  A  UNIVERSITY  259 

plication  of  science  to  industry.  Of  several  departments 
established  at  this  time,  it  could  be  said,  and  was,  that 
their  counterparts  had  not  previously  existed  in  any 
university.  In  order  to  facilitate  all  of  these  activities 
it  was  desirable  that  the  university  should  be  organized 
on  a  more  logical  and  workable  plan. 

The  university  had  already  outgrown  its  earlier  orga- 
nization. The  old  College  of  Letters  and  College  of  Arts 
overlapped;  the  nominal  divisions  of  the  university  did 
not  coincide  with  the  actual  alignment  of  interests.  Ac- 
cordingly, an  act  of  legislature  was  procured  in  1889, 
whereby  the  old  organization  was  abolished  and  the  uni- 
versity was  reconstituted  into  the  four  colleges  of  Letters 
and  Science,  of  Agriculture,  of  Engineering,  and  of  Law. 
All  the  departments  of  pure  knowledge  and  investiga- 
tion, including  the  physical  sciences,  were  associated 
together  in  a  single  college,  with  complete  autonomy  as 
to  its  internal  affairs ;  while  each  of  the  more  powerful 
divisions  of  professional  or  applied  knowledge  was 
erected  into  an  independent  organization  with  which  the 
central  college  might  have  such  relations  as  should  seem, 
at  any  time,  reciprocally  advantageous.  For  purposes 
of  administration,  the  School  of  Pharmacy  was  later 
affiliated  with  the  College  of  Letters  and  Science,  and 
the  Experiment  Station  was  more  closely  united  with 
the  College  of  Agriculture.  The  College  of  Law  was 
immediately  reorganized,  with  General  E.  E.  Bryant  as 
dean.  Two  years  later  (1891),  Dr.  Birge  was  made  dean 
of  the  College  of  Letters  and  Science,  and  Professor  W. 
A.  Henry  was  made  dean  of  the  College  of  Agriculture. 
The  College  of  Engineering,  for  the  time  being,  was 
managed  by  a  committee  of  its  faculty.  These  changes 
both  simplified  and  amplified  the  mechanical  structure 
of  the  university,  classifying  its  activities  more  logically 


260  WISCONSIN 

and  making  room  for  larger  growth  in  its  several  divi- 
sions. The  same  legislature  which  made  possible  these 
improvements  in  the  machinery  of  the  university,  greatly 
unified  the  power  by  which  it  was  controlled  in  making 
the  president  of  the  faculty,  ex-officio,  a  member  of  the 
board  of  regents. 

President  Chamberlin's  plans  for  the  advancement  of 
the  university  were  favored  by  circumstances  at  the  out- 
set. One  of  the  eternal  conflicts  in  modern  university 
management  is  that  between  men  and  appliances.  The 
wages  of  the  teaching  force,  always  an  incorrigible  nui- 
sance, become  peculiarly  so  in  an  institution  that  is 
growing.  Particularly  in  a  state  university,  where  there 
is  only  a  nominal  charge  for  tuition,  an  increase  of  at- 
tendance brings  but  a  negligible  enhancement  of  revenue 
to  offset  the  added  expense  of  operation  which  it  involves. 
Resources  are  constantly  being  taxed  to  anticipate  the 
expansion  of  the  future  by  extensions  of  the  physical 
equipment.  The  more  rapid  the  expansion,  the  more 
hectic  is  the  temptation  to  sacrifice  animate  to  inanimate 
impressiveness.  When  Chamberlin  came,  the  university 
had  just  been  provided  with  buildings  in  excess  of  its 
immediate  requirements  and  with  a  considerable  appro- 
priation for  apparatus.  With  admirable  coolness,  he 
seized  the  moment  of  advantage  to  revolutionize  the 
departmental  scope  of  the  institution.  There  was  still 
room  for  improvements ;  but  these  were  postponed.  For 
a  few  years  longer  the  cadets  could  shiver  and  grumble 
around  the  rude  sheet-iron  stoves  in  the  old  pine  Drill 
Hall  or  "warm-up"  by  hurling  the  ancient  bowling 
balls,  Indian  clubs,  and  other  odds  and  ends,  around  its 
battered  floors;  the  women  might  scold  at  the  incon- 
veniences of  Ladies  Hall  or  find  lodgings  in  the  town; 
and  Professor  Owen,  muffled  ear  to  ankle  of  his  fas- 


TOWARDS  A  UNIVERSITY  261 

tidious  length,  might  continue  to  curse  the  courants  d' 
air  of  the  recitation  rooms  in  Main  Hall.  To  put  it 
baldly,  Chamberlin  spent  his  money  for  men.  The 
"marauding  expeditions"  of  the  Wisconsin  president 
advertised  the  university  throughout  the  East,  and  the 
campus  was  re-colonized  with  a  score  of  new  heads  of 
departments.  The  salary  scale  had  been  raised  the  year 
he  came  and  was  raised  again  before  he  left;  while  the 
creation  of  deans  and  the  inducements  offered  Dr.  Ely 
as  director  of  the  new  School  of  Political  Science  and 
History  set  another  range  of  compensation  for  semi- 
administrative  positions.  In  five  years,  though  all  other 
operating  expenses  increased  only  fifty  per  cent,  the 
annual  expenditure  for  instruction  was  doubled. 

The  faculty  of  the  university  when  President  Cham- 
berlin took  charge  was  still  a  relatively  simple,  if  not 
very  logical  organization,  consisting  of  24  professors,  2 
assistant  professors,  and  8  instructors,  in  addition  to  a 
library  attendant,  one  full  professor  and  several  assist- 
ants at  the  Experiment  Station,  and  half  a  dozen  demi- 
professors  in  the  Law  School.  At  the  end  of  our  period, 
the  number  of  full  professors  had  increased  to  59,  and 
members  of  the  faculty  of  all  other  grades  to  125 ;  that 
is,  while  the  number  of  professors  had  doubled  once  and 
a  half,  the  teachers  of  less  than  full  professorial  rank 
had  become  eleven  times  more  numerous.  These  pro- 
portions changed  relatively  little  during  the  first  five 
years ;  for  while  the  number  of  professors  increased  from 
24  to  43,  there  were  still  only  6  assistant  professors,  16 
instructors,  and  2  assistants.  In  addition,  the  work  of 
instruction  required  of  the  university  fellows  was  then 
of  some  importance.  Even  with  these  included,  however, 
the  full  professorships  substantially  outnumbered  all 
other  faculty  grades. 


262  WISCONSIN 

During  the  second  lustrum  there  came  the  develop- 
ment of  what  might  be  called  the  middle  faculty.  The 
expansion  of  the  central  college  and  the  growing  volume 
of  elementary  instruction  required  of  it  were  now  chiefly 
met  by  augmentation  of  the  lower  ranks  of  the  faculty. 
There  were  only  three  more  professors  at  the  end  of 
this  time  than  at  the  beginning;  but  the  number  of 
assistant-professors  had  increased  from  6  to  24.  In 
addition  the  associate-professorship  had  been  introduced, 
a  rank  first  conferred  in  1893.  These  statistics  indicate 
that  the  faculty  was  maturing  and  filling  out  within  the 
boundaries  of  the  departments  already  established. 
Men  who  had  served  their  apprenticeship  in  the  instruc- 
tional ranks  were  being  retained  and  entrusted  with 
greater  responsibilities,  and  the  faculty  was  further 
filled  out  by  calling  from  abroad  men  of  this  rank  or  of 
a  promise  which  soon  brought  them  advancement.  By 
this  means,  the  departmental  leaders  were  freed  for  more 
advanced  and  special  work.  Meantime,  the  number  of 
instructors  had  been  increased  from  16  to  26,  and  of  as- 
sistants from  2  to  14.  There  were  49  professors,  2  asso- 
ciate professors,  and  64  of  all  other  grades.  The 
numerical  predominance  of  the  lower  ranks  continued  to 
increase  during  the  third  five-year  period,  though  at  a 
somewhat  slackened  rate,  for  while  the  number  of  pro- 
fessors was  augmented  by  ten  (about  20  per  cent)  the 
total  of  other  ranks  nearly  doubled,  producing  the  dis- 
parity noted  above.  But  the  sphere  of  most  rapid  expan- 
sion had  shifted  to  the  ranks  of  instructor  and  assistant, 
the  number  of  assistant-professors  advancing  from  24  to 
35,  or  about  46  per  cent,  while  the  number  of  in- 
structors advanced  from  26  to  58,  and  of  assistants  from 
14  to  30,  an  increase  of  120  per  cent  in  the  two  lower 
grades.    This  shift  in  the  balance  of  the  faculty  was  due 


TOWARDS  A  UNIVERSITY  263 

to  the  large  increase  of  elementary  instruction  through 
the  growth  of  the  technical  departments,  and  to  changes 
in  the  methods  of  instruction. 

The  faculty  had  become  in  a  very  few  years  not  only 
a  much  larger,  but  a  much  less  homogeneous  body. 
Therein  it  reflected  the  change  in  the  university  as  a 
whole.  Looked  at  horizontally  or  vertically,  its  stratifica- 
tion is  striking.  Looking  horizontally,  one  sees  side  by 
side,  in  parallel  columns,  as  it  were,  the  boldly  con- 
trasted departments  of  the  university,  represented  by 
individuals  of  widely  different  intellectual  temper,  at- 
tainments, and  pursuits, — Greek  and  Philosophy  on  the 
one  wing,  balanced  by  Hydraulic  Engineering  and  Dairy 
Husbandry  on  the  other,  with  Mathematics  and  the  Pure 
Sciences  pillared  somewhere  in  the  middle.  The  up  and 
down  layering  of  the  faculty  multiplied  the  miscellaneity 
of  the  group.  At  the  base  was  the  crowd  of  assistants 
and  instructors,  some  of  them  just  out  of  college  and  re- 
taining much  of  the  undergraduate  point  of  view;  some 
of  them  only  temporarily  committed  to  teaching;  some, 
youthful  specialists  just  entering  on  a  scholarly  career, 
whose  first  contributions  to  knowledge  had  recently  been 
certified  at  Leipsic  or  Berlin,  Johns  Hopkins,  Harvard, 
Cornell,  and  in  a  few  cases  at  "Wisconsin.  Somewhat 
more  advanced  in  maturity  and  in  the  stability  of  its 
attachment  to  the  faculty  was  the  substantial  group  of 
assistant-professors.  By  a  twist  of  psychology  which  we 
will  not  pause  to  analyze  the  members  of  this  group  were 
often  much  more  uncompromising  on  academic  questions 
and  toward  recalcitrant  undergraduates,  than  their 
elders.  The  professorial  heads  of  the  hierarchy,  in  turn, 
composed  a  sufficiently  heterogeneous  body.  In  part 
they  were  "old-fashioned  professors"  who  had  spent  a 
lifetime  in  the  service  of  the  institution.     Of  these,  a 


264  WISCONSIN 

few  had  kept  pace  with  new  knowledge  and  new  methods 
and  were  still  a  power  in  university  councils ;  others  had 
lost  step  and  were  slipping  into  the  background.  Many- 
were  younger  men  who  during  the  rapid  extension  of  the 
faculty  had  been  summoned  from  other  fields  to  take 
charge  of  newly  created  departments,  or  young  special- 
ists, of  exceptional  power  who,  called  to  tentative  posi- 
tions in  the  lower  ranks,  had  developed  their  subjects  and 
established  them  as  permanent  departments  of  the  uni- 
versity. 

In  the  main,  this  manner  of  constituting  the  faculty 
was  favorable  to  the  breadth  and  the  alertness  of  its 
intellectual  life.  The  competition,  both  between  depart- 
ments and  within  them,  made  university  teaching  a  more 
lively  occupation  than  in  the  older  days.  To  the  younger 
men  the  possibility  of  promotion  offered  a  constant  in- 
centive to  more  strenuous  scholarship ;  while  the  presence 
of  a  group  of  ambitious  young  rivals  was  a  wholesome 
spur  to  their  elders.  The  intellectual  tone  of  the  faculty 
was  in  marked  contrast  to  that  of  the  old-fashioned 
college  in  which  a  more  or  less  uniform  group  of  culti- 
vated gentlemen,  year  after  year,  bestowed  upon  a  more 
or  less  stereotyped  group  of  undergraduates  the  annual 
appropriations  of  learning  and  humor. 

Yet  more  remarkable,  when  all  is  said,  than  the 
heterogeneity  of  the  faculty,  was  the  firmness 
with  which  it  was  held  together  by  a  potent 
and  relatively  harmonious  "university  spirit." 
Among  the  ponderable  factors  which  contributed  to 
this  result,  one  was  the  existence  of  a  general 
parliament  in  which  the  larger  questions  of  educational 
policy  were  discussed  with  great  fullness  and  frankness 
by  the  entire  faculty.  In  these  councils  the  liberal  col- 
lege continued  to  hold  the  position  of  leadership,  partly 


TOWARDS  A  UNIVERSITY  265 

through  additions  to  its  strength,  but  in  no  small  meas- 
ure, through  the  wisdom  of  progressive  members  of  the 
older  faculty  who,  by  not  opposing  unreasonably  the 
newer  movements  of  the  university,  were  the  more  able 
to  resist  vagaries  and  preserve  the  essential  traditions  of 
the  college.  Both  President  Chamberlin  and  President 
Adams,  happily,  were  interested  in  perpetuating  the 
strength  of  the  liberal  college.  Not  the  least  of  personal 
factors  in  preserving  the  integrity  of  the  college  has 
been  the  long  service  of  Dr.  Birge,  from  the  days  of 
Bascom's  presidency  until  his  own,  as  leader  of  the 
faculty  and  close  associate  of  successive  administrations. 
Though  a  scientist  in  special  scholarship,  his  mental  life 
founded  itself  securely  oh  the  old  liberal  training  of 
Williams  College.  Familiarity  with  every  detail  of  the 
university,  breadth  of  knowledge  and  intellectual  sym- 
pathy, unusual  powers  of  analysis,  precision  and  balance 
of  judgment,  and  keenness  in  debate,  made  him  a  master 
of  compromise  and  a  mediator  peculiarly  invaluable  in 
a  period  of  transition.  To  him,  more  than  to  any  other 
individual,  is  due  the  preservation  of  the  central  col- 
lege and  the  continuity  of  its  influence  in  the  university. 

Turning  now  to  review  briefly  the  progress  of  the 
several  colleges  in  this  period,  we  shall  see  that  move- 
ments which  were  begun  under  Chamberlin  were  carried 
forward  to  a  symmetrical  level  under  Adams  and  Birge. 
In  almost  every  particular,  the  year  1903,  furnishes  a 
convenient  terminus  ad  quern  for  the  taking  of  stock 
and  a  girding  of  loins  for  a  new  movement  toward  the 
future. 

The  reorganization  of  the  College  of  Law  has  been 
mentioned.  Though  many  good  lawyers  had  gone  into 
practice  from  this  institution,  its  requirements  for  ad- 
mission had  been  low  and  its  administration  lax.     For 


266  WISCONSIN 

many  years  it  was  too  frequently  a  refuge  for  students 
who  had  failed  to  maintain  a  footing  in  other  depart- 
ments of  the  university.  The  faculty  of  the  college  had 
been  composed  entirely  of  members  of  the  local  bench 
and  bar.  This  system  had  the  advantage  of  bringing  the 
student  into  contact  with  practitioners  of  conspicuous 
talent  and  strong  personality.  The  names  of  I.  C.  Sloan, 
Burr  W.  Jones,  R.  M.  Bashford,  and  John  M.  Olin  are 
memorable  in  the  law  annals  of  these  years.  The  last,  in 
particular,  was  a  teacher  of  almost  awesome  severity  and 
power.  "I  have  Olin,  tomorrow,"  quashed  any  entice- 
ment to  recreation.  But  though  individual  lecturers 
were  lacking  neither  in  ability  nor  zeal,  the  system  was 
doomed   to   condemnation. 

Important  steps  in  the  improvement  of  the  college 
were  taken  under  Chamberlin.  The  new  dean  was  re- 
quired to  give  his  entire  time  to  the  work  of  the  college ; 
the  fees  were  raised;  the  curriculum  was  enlarged  so  as 
to  occupy  two  years  instead  of  one;  and  preparations 
were  made  to  remove  the  law  classes  from  "down 
town,"  where  they  had  always  been,  to  the  university 
campus.  During  Adams'  first  year  the  new  building 
was  occupied  and  the  college,  "for  the  first  time  in  its 
history,  seemed  to  be  fully  incorporated  as  an  integral 
part  of  the  university."  The  following  year  the  course 
was  extended  to  three  years;  a  policy  was  definitely 
adopted  of  "placing  less  dependence  upon  professors 
actively  engaged  in  the  practice  of  the  law  and  more 
upon  professors  who  could  give  their  entire  time  to  the 
work  of  the  school ' ' ;  and  a  year  later,  the  requirements 
for  admission  were  made  the  same  as  those  to  the  Col- 
lege of  Letters  and  Science.  A  full-time  faculty  was 
gradually  built  up  through  the  appointment  of  Charles 
N.  Gregory   71,  in  1894,  A.  A.  Bruce   '90,  in  1898, 


TOWARDS  A  UNIVERSITY  267 

Howard  L.  Smith  '81,  in  1900,  and  E.  A.  Gilmore,  a 
graduate  of  the  Harvard  Law  School,  in  1902.  Gregory 
resigned  in  1901  and  Bruce  a  year  later.  Of  the  close  of 
Dean  Bryant's  fourteen  years  of  service,  almost  co- 
terminus  with  this  period,  I  cannot  do  better  than  quote 
the  gracious  words  of  his  successor,  the  present  dean : 

"In  June,  1903,  Dean  Bryant  resigned  the  office  of 
Dean  and  was  elected  resident  Professor  of  Law,  in 
charge  of  the  courses  in  Pleading  and  Practice.  This 
change  was  at  the  request  of  Dean  Bryant,  who  desired 
more  time  to  devote  to  teaching  and  investigation.  As 
he  had  already  covered  the  subjects  of  Pleading  and 
Practice  in  a  number  of  treatises  recognized  as  au- 
thoritative by  the  profession,  the  announcement  that  he 
would  continue  as  a  professor  in  the  school  was  regarded 
by  law  school  men  and  the  profession  generally  as 
peculiarly  fortunate.  By  his  sudden  death  in  August, 
1903,  the  hope  that  he  would  be  able  to  devote  many 
years  to  the  school  was  destroyed.  His  death  brought  a 
sense  of  personal  loss  to  everyone  who  had  known  him, 
and  particularly  to  his  old  pupils,  who  knew  and  appre- 
ciated his  untiring  devotion  to  their  personal  interests, 
as  well  as  to  the  school,  during  the  period  of  his  Dean- 
ship." 

The  advances  in  the  College  of  Engineering  lay  chiefly 
in  the  direction  of  the  subdivision  and  addition  of  de- 
partments of  study  so  as  to  offer  more  detailed  prepara- 
tion for  the  several  branches  of  engineering  practice, 
and  in  the  provision  of  more  adequate  facilities  for 
this  expensive  type  of  instruction.  The  first  legislature 
of  Chamberlin's  term  (1889)  specifically  appropriated, 
for  the  continuous  use  of  this  college,  one  per  cent,  of 
the  railroad  license  tax  of  the  state.  The  work  of  the 
college  was  immediately  recast  and  very  much  enlarged. 
A  distinct  chair  of  Mechanical  Engineering  had  been 


268  WISCONSIN 

created  in  1885.  In  1889,  a  department  of  applied 
Mechanics  was  differentiated  and  given  to  L.  M.  Hoskins 
'84.  Two  years  later,  Hoskins  was  advanced  to  the  pro- 
fessorship of  Mechanics ;  Professor  Storm  Bull,  who  had 
been  with  the  department  since  1879,  was  assigned  to 
Steam  Engineering,  with  A.  W.  Richter  '89,  as  instruc- 
tor in  the  same  subject,  and  a  third  chair,  of  Machine 
Design,  was  created,  with  A.  W.  Smith  as  professor.  The 
same  year  (1891)  Professor  Allan  Conover  having  re- 
signed to  devote  himself  to  the  practice  of  architecture, 
the  department  of  Civil  Engineering  was  subdivided, 
and  N.  0.  Whitney  was  called  to  the  chair  of  Railroad 
Engineering,  and  C.  B.  Wing  to  that  of  Bridge  and 
Hydraulic  Engineering.  Two  years  later  the  topo- 
graphical work  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  a  special 
instructor,  L.  S.  Smith  '90;  and  J.  G.  D.  Mack  was 
added  to  the  mechanical  staff.  Hoskins,  A.  W.  Smith, 
and  Wing  were  all  carried  off,  in  1892,  by  Leland  Stan- 
ford University,  and  their  places  were  taken,  severally, 
by  E.  R.  Maurer  '90,  by  F.  R.  Jones,  and  by  F.  E. 
Turneaure.  D.  C.  Jackson,  then  division  engineer  with 
the  Edison  Company,  was  called  the  same  year  to  begin 
the  development  of  a  course  in  Electrical  Engineering. 
This  proved  successful  and  popular  and  became,  within  a 
few  years,  the  largest  of  the  three  main  divisions  of  the 
college.  From  Electrical  Engineering  there  sprang,  a 
little  later,  under  the  leadership  of  C.  F.  Burgess  '95, 
appointed  instructor  in  1896,  a  new  division  of  Electro- 
Chemical  Engineering. 

The  high  proportional  increase  of  attendance  in  this 
college  toward  the  end  of  Adams'  administration  has 
been  noticed.  In  actual  number  the  students  in  Engi- 
neering, from  75  in  Chamberlin's  first  year,  had  in- 
creased to  179  in  1892-93,  to  227  in  1897-98,  and,  at  the 


TOWAKDS  A  UNIVERSITY  269 

end  of  another  five  years,  to  585.  The  problems  of  ad- 
ministration involved  in  so  sudden  and  extensive  an 
increase  of  numbers  was  very  clearly  stated  by  Acting- 
President  Birge  in  his  Report  of  1902.  Since  the  con- 
ditions in  this  college  illustrated,  in  an  acute  form,  the 
effect  of  increase  of  numbers  throughout  the  university, 
the  passage  may  be  quoted  for  its  general  import,  as 
well  as  for  its  special  information: 

"The  attendance  on  this  college  has  nearly  doubled 
during  the  past  two  years  and  the  increase  in  numbers 
in  the  lower  classes  is  such  that  as  they  move  on  to 
junior  and  senior  rank  it  will  no  longer  be  possible  to 
teach  in  one  section  the  divisions  which  have  formerly 
been  small  enough  to  be  handled  in  this  way.  Large 
additions  must,  therefore,  be  made  to  the  teaching  force 
from  the  mere  increase  in  numbers.  In  a  similar  way, 
the  increase  of  students  has  made  it  necessary  to  dupli- 
cate extensively  much  expensive  apparatus,  so  that  the 
students  may  be  able  to  carry  on  their  laboratory  work. 
In  this  way  has  been  expended  a  large  share  of  the 
money  appropriated  for  apparatus  in  this  department 
by  the  last  legislature — money  which  it  was  hoped  might 
be  applied  to  additions  to  the  laboratory  equipment, 
which  should  enlarge  it  and  bring  it  more  nearly  up  to 
date  in  its  extent  and  quality.  But  when  we  consider 
not  merely  the  immediate  demands  caused  by  numbers, 
but  the  growth  of  the  college  as  made  necessary  by  the 
progress  of  engineering  science  and  by  the  demands  of 
those  employing  engineers,  we  find  that  even  greatei 
demands  have  come  from  this  source  than  from  the  in- 
crease in  numbers.  The  standard  of  engineering  educa- 
tion is  rising  rapidly.  New  demands,  of  which  electro- 
chemistry is  only  one  example,  are  coming  forward  and 
attaining  such  economic  importance  that  the  University 
must  recognize  them  and  be  equipped  to  teach  them 
thoroughly.  Thus,  the  expense  of  maintaining  a  techni- 
cal school,  as  well  as  all  other  departments  of  the  Uni- 
versity, must  constantly  rise  in  order  to  meet  with  the 


270  WISCONSIN 

increasing  demands  of  a  civilization  which  depends  more 
and  more  upon  highly  specialized  and  technical  educa- 
tion." 

The  Machine  Shops  had  been  greatly  enlarged  in  1894 
and  an  added  appropriation  for  the  support  of  the  col- 
lege was  secured  in  1895.  The  need  of  a  special  building 
for  this  department  was  urged  by  President  Adams  at 
the  very  beginning  of  his  administration  and,  in  1896, 
he  mentioned  this  as  "the  most  pressing  of  the  material 
needs  of  the  university."  Finally,  in  1899,  the  legisla- 
ture appropriated  $100,000  for  this  purpose  and,  the 
same  year,  Professor  J.  B.  Johnson  was  called  to  the 
deanship  of  the  college.  Two  years  later,  an  appropria- 
tion of  $30,000  for  apparatus  was  secured.  The  pros- 
pects for  the  college  were  now  very  bright.  The  new 
dean  prophesied  that  it  would  become  "in  the  very  near 
future,  the  leading  technical  school  of  the  Mississippi 
Valley  and  one  of  the  two  or  three  leading  schools  of 
applied  science  in  America."  Unfortunately  he  did  not 
live  to  assist  in  the  realization  of  his  prophecy.  The  fol- 
lowing summer,  the  entire  university  was  shocked  and 
grieved  at  the  news  of  Dean  Johnson's  sudden  death  by 
accident.  The  administrative  work  of  the  college  was 
entrusted  to  Professor  Turneaure,  as  acting-dean,  and  he 
discharged  the  duties  of  the  position  so  satisfactorily 
that,  a  year  later  (1903),  he  was  appointed  permanent 
dean. 

It  will  be  noted  that  the  main  outlines  of  the  college 
had  been  established  during  President  Chamberlin's 
last  two  years;  while  its  resources  and  facilities  were 
greatly  enlarged  under  President  Adams.  At  the  end  of 
this  period  there  was  no  sign  of  a  diminution  in  its  head- 
way. The  administration  of  this  department  of  the  uni- 
versity was  notable  for  a  judicious  confinement  of  its 


TOWARDS  A  UNIVERSITY  271 

activities  within  the  bounds  justified  by  its  resources 
and  for  the  maintenance  of  a  severity  of  standards  which 
made  the  courses  in  Engineering  among  the  most  ardu- 
ous and  the  most  respected  in  the  university.  There  was 
observable,  moreover,  a  vigorous  esprit  de  corps,  not  only 
amongst  the  students,  but  amongst  students  and  faculty 
combined,  which  caused  the  College  of  Engineering  to  be 
frequently  cited  in  defiance  of  coeducation. 

Although  in  the  College  of  Engineering  some  valu- 
able experimental  work  had  been  done,  especially  toward 
the  end  of  the  period  under  review,  the  chief  progress, 
in  both  of  the  divisions  of  the  university  thus  far  noticed, 
had  been  in  the  direction  of  more  effective  preparation 
for  professional  practice.  The  converse  was  true  in 
the  development  of  the  College  of  Agriculture.  "The 
history  of  agricultural  schools  in  this  country  and  in 
Europe  shows  that  they  are  the  most  difficult  to  sus- 
tain," President  Salomon  of  the  board  of  regents  wrote 
in  1867.  Fourteen  years  later,  President  Bascom 
recorded  that  the  agricultural  department  was  "for  the 
first  time  beginning  to  strike  root  a  little  and  promise 
some  growth."  This  was  at  the  beginning  of  Professor 
Henry's  connection  with  the  university.  But  it  was 
fully  twenty  years  later,  at  the  very  end  of  the  period, 
that  agricultural  education  on  the  collegiate  plane  began 
to  show  signs  of  life.  It  was  not  until  progress  had 
been  made  in  applied  research  and  in  the  diffusion  of 
scientific  knowledge  by  means  of  printed  bulletins,  of 
farmers'  institutes,  and  of  short  practice  courses,  that 
the  collegiate  course  in  Agriculture  attracted  any  con- 
siderable body  of  students.  The  significant  truth  is, 
doubtless,  that,  though  one  of  the  oldest  of  arts,  Agri- 
culture is  one  of  the  youngest  of  the  sciences.  Even 
in  reference  to  agricultural  "extension,"  as  Dean  Rus- 


272  WISCONSIN 

sell  recently  remarked  in  conversation  with  the  writer, 
"  Research  must  be  kept  alive  or  we  shall  have  nothing 
to  extend."  Before  it  could  take  its  place  in  competi- 
tion with  other  subjects  of  collegiate  instruction,  Agri- 
culture must  be  built  up  as  a  combined  science  and  art, 
demonstrate  its  efficiency,  and  persuade  its  clientele.  It 
was  therefore  in  the  related  activities  of  the  application 
of  science  to  specific  problems,  and  the  diffusion  of  prac- 
tical information  through  various  agencies,  especially 
through  the  "short  courses"  in  Dairying  and  the  like, 
that  the  first  significant  advances  were  made. 

President  Chamberlin's  keen  eye  for  whatever  was 
most  advanced  and  promising  in  applied  science  was 
naturally  attracted  to  the  opportunities  in  this  field. 
And,  just  at  this  moment,  there  came  timely  assistance 
through  the  provisions  of  the  "Hatch  Act,"  whereby  the 
Experiment  Station,  in  common  with  like  institutions 
throughout  the  country,  received  from  the  national  gov- 
ernment, $15,000  a  year  for  the  support  of  agricultural 
research.  Three  years  later  (1890),  the  supplementary 
"Morrill  Grant"  added  to  the  support  of  schools  of  ap- 
plied science  another  $15,000,  with  the  further  provision 
that  the  appropriation  should  increase  $1,000  a  year 
until  it  reached  $25,000.  With  this  substantial  assist- 
ance from  the  nation  and  with  cordial  favor  from  the 
state  government,  the  agricultural  activities  of  the  uni- 
versity entered  on  a  new  era,  under  the  able  and  zealous 
direction  of  Dean  Henry. 

Of  the  basal  sciences,  the  only  one  which  up  to  this 
time  had  been  much  developed  in  relation  to  agriculture 
was  that  of  Chemistry.  As  head  of  this  department, 
Wisconsin  was  fortunate  in  securing,  from  the  New 
York  Experiment  Station,  S.  M.  Babcock,  who  entered 
upon  his  duties  as  professor  of  Agricultural  Chemistry 


The  Babcock  Test 

Henry  Chamberlain  Babcock 


TOWARDS  A  UNIVERSITY  273 

during  Chamberlin's  first  year  (January,  1888).  With 
him  was  associated,  as  assistant,  F.  W.  Woll,  a  graduate 
of  the  University  of  Norway.  The  same  year  there  was 
created  and  filled  by  the  appointment  of  F.  H.  King,  a 
chair  of  Agricultural  Physics,  "the  first  chair  of  this 
kind,  so  far  as  known,  yet  specifically  established." 
Five  years  later,  at  the  end  of  Adams'  first  year,  the 
development  of  another  pioneer  department,  that  of 
Agricultural  Bacteriology,  was  placed  in  charge  of  H. 
L.  Russell  '88.  A  somewhat  different  class  of  experi- 
ments and  teaching  was  inaugurated  with  the  creation  of 
a  chair  of  Horticulture,  under  Professor  E.  S.  Goff 
(1888-1902),  and  a  professorship  of  Animal  Husbandry, 
first  held  by  John  A.  Craig  (1890-97)  and  subsequently 
by  W.  L.  Carlyle  (1898-1903).  The  appointment  of 
Professor  E.  H.  Farrington,  in  1894,  brought  the  work 
in  practical  dairying  into  still  closer  relation  with  the 
more  purely  scientific  wing  of  the  department.  In  this 
connection  should  be  mentioned  Dean  Henry's  investi- 
gations of  which  the  results  were  later  combined  with 
compilations  on  the  subject  in  a  standard  text,  entitled, 
Feeds  and  Feeding. 

In  addition  to  the  voluminous  annual  Reports  of  the 
Experiment  Station,  its  special  Bulletins,  down  to  June 
30,  1903  number  precisely  one  hundred,  and  of  these,  all 
but  eight  or  ten  belong  to  this  period.  Many  of  these 
of  course  are  merely  critical  compilations  of  the  best 
and  newest  information  bearing  upon  particular  agri- 
cultural practices,  issued  for  the  diffusion  of  useful 
knowledge  among  the  farmers  of  the  state.  Many,  how- 
ever, embody  the  results  of  original  investigations  and 
experiments,  and  not  a  few  represent  the  application  to 
particular  problems  of  very  advanced  types  of  scientific 
research.     Among    the    important    discoveries    of    this 


274  WISCONSIN 

period  was  the  ''Wisconsin  Curd  Test,"  for  the  detec- 
tion of  taint  or  bacteria  in  milk,  devised  by  Babcock, 
Russell,  and  Decker  in  1896.  This  process  was  found 
to  be  of  special  service  to  manufacturers  of  cheese.  Of 
its  practical  results,  Dean  Henry  declared,  eight  years 
after  its  invention,  that  it  returned  "annually  to  our 
people  the  whole  cost  of  their  Agricultural  College." 
This  exploit  was  shortly  followed  by  a  still  more  inter- 
esting application  of  science  on  the  part  of  Babcock  and 
Russell.  Having  demonstrated  the  presence  in  milk  of 
minute  quantities  of  a  hitherto  undetected  enzyme  which 
they  named  "galactase,"  and  having,  by  continued 
studies,  found  that  it  closely  resembled  some  of  the 
fluids  of  the  alimentary  canal,  the  investigators  were  led 
to  suspect  that  the  so-called  "ripening"  of  cheese  might 
be  in  part  a  sort  of  digestive  process  and  not,  as  had 
been  supposed,  primarily  the  result  of  bacterial  action. 
This  suggested  the  practicability  of  low-temperature  cur- 
ing of  cheese.  Practical  demonstrations  established  the 
validity  of  their  theory  and  resulted  in  important  econo- 
mies in  the  methods  of  storing  and  curing  cheese.  Thus 
researches  which,  in  the  first  instance,  were  dependent 
upon  the  most  exacting  technique  in  the  sciences  of 
Chemistry  and  Bacteriology,  issued  in  applications  of 
the  broadest  economic  character. 

But  the  most  noted  achievement  of  the  Experiment  Sta- 
tion in  this  period,  and  doubtless,  all  things  considered, 
the  most  momentous,  was  the  origination  of  the  famous 
"Babcock  Milk  Test."  Ever  since  the  discovery  by 
De  Laval,  in  Sweden,  of  the  centrifugal  process  of  sepa- 
rating cream  from  milk,  agricultural  chemists  had 
sought  a  simple,  accurate,  and  expeditious  method  of 
measuring  the  butter-fat  content  of  milk,  but  without 
success.     Such  a  process  was  the  one  thing  needed  to 


TOWARDS  A  UNIVERSITY  275 

lace  cooperative  dairying  on  a  sound  basis.  Tradition 
as  it  that  Professor  Henry,  at  the  suggestion  of  Presi- 
dent Chamberlin,  set  Dr.  Babcock  at  work  upon  the 
problem.  After  long  and  persistent  experimentation,  in 
the  course  of  which  one  difficulty  after  another  was  con- 
fronted and  overcome,  all  the  requirements  of  a  satis- 
factory solution  were  met.  Bulletin  No.  24  of  the  Wis- 
consin Experiment  Station,  issued  July,  1890,  an- 
nounced the  invention  of  the  long-sought  process.  The 
economic  importance  of  the  discovery  gave  it  wings. 
Within  a  short  time,  the  fame  of  the  invention  and  of 
the  inventor  was  as  widespread  as  the  dairy  industry. 
''The  Babcock  test  was  to  associated  dairying,"  says 
Dean  Henry,  "what  the  Morse  electric  telegraph  was  to 
railroad  operation."  The  potency  of  this  concrete 
achievement  in  establishing  the  prestige  of  scientific  re- 
search, and  ingratiating  the  university  with  the  state, 
cannot  be  estimated.  Though  by  no  means  Dr.  Bab- 
cock's  most  distinguished  achievement,  in  a  purely  sci- 
entific sense,  this  discovery  has  remained  his  chief  title 
to  popular  fame.  The  triumph  was  made  more  piquant 
by  the  circumstance  that  Dr.  Babcock,  in  order  that  the 
beneficent  effect  of  his  invention  upon  the  dairy  indus- 
try might  be  as  little  obstructed  as  possible,  refused  to 
let  it  be  exploited  under  the  protection  of  patent.  It 
was  in  recognition  of  this  spirit  of  public  service  that 
the  state  legislature,  in  1899,  voted  him  the  very  unusual 
honor  of  a  commemorative  medal,  which  was  formally 
presented  at  a  special  meeting,  two  years  later. 

It  happens  that  each  of  the  scientific  enterprises  just 
mentioned  bore  directly  upon  a  single  industry,  that 
of  dairying;  but  in  many  directions,  in  the  course  of 
this  period,  the  university  multiplied  and  widened  its 
activities  in  relation  to  the  farming  interests   of  the 


276  WISCONSIN 

state.  The  reclamation  and  treatment  of  soils  through 
proper  drainage,  fertilization,  and  tillage;  the  promo- 
tion of  the  beet  sugar,  cranberry,  and  tobacco  industries ; 
the  improvement  of  fruit  varieties  and  the  inspection 
of  nursery  stock;  the  introduction  of  more  scientific 
methods  of  feeding;  the  analysis  and  control  of  con- 
centrated feeding  stuffs  and  commercial  fertilizers;  the 
testing  of  herds  with  a  view  to  raising  the  standard  of 
production ;  the  detection  and  eradication  of  tuberculosis 
among  dairy  cattle ;  the  prevention  of  potato  scab  and 
oat  smut;  the  discovery,  improvement,  and  dissemina- 
tion of  improved  varieties  of  oats  and  corn ;  were  among 
the  more  important  advances  in  agricultural  practice 
for  which  the  farmers  of  the  state  were  indebted  to 
the  initiative  and  activity  of  the  College  of  Agriculture. 
While  the  Reports  and  Bulletins  of  the  Experiment 
Station  reached  a  wide  audience,  perhaps  of  even  greater 
importance  in  extending  and  solidifying  the  influence 
of  the  university  in  the  state  was  the  development  of 
the  Farmers'  Institutes  and  of  the  Short  Courses  in 
Agriculture  and  in  Dairying.  Farmers'  Institutes  and  a 
Short  Course  in  Agriculture  had  been  inaugurated  about 
simultaneously  in  1885-86.  Priority  has  been  claimed  for 
Wisconsin  in  the  devising  of  both  of  these  expedients  for 
the  extension  of  agricultural  knowledge.  Both  were  parts 
of  a  programme  for  removing  the  reproach  of  ineffective- 
ness which  had  so  long  attached  to  this  department  of 
university  effort.  Under  the  superintendency  of  W.  H. 
Morrison,  and  later  of  George  McKerrow,  the  Farmers' 
Institutes  were  soon  placed  on  a  successful  footing. 
During  the  nineties,  upwards  of  one  hundred  communi- 
ties of  the  state  were  each  year  organized  into  con- 
ferences for  the  hearing  of  reports  and  discussions  upon 
matters  of  practical  interest  to  the  farmer.     In  1887, 


TOWARDS  A  UNIVERSITY  277 

there  were  distributed  31,000  copies  of  the  first  Farm- 
ers' Institute  Bulletin,  and  by  1896,  the  demand  was 
such  that  an  annual  edition  of  60,000  was  required.  In 
this  year,  a  representative  of  the  Michigan  Agricultural 
College,  making  the  rounds  of  the  various  states  which 
had  introduced  the  system,  reported  that  the  Farmers' 
Institutes  were  better  organized  and  more  successful  in 
Wisconsin  than  in  any  other  state.  The  Short  Course 
opened  for  the  first  time  in  January,  1886,  with  eighteen 
students  and  ran  for  twelve  weeks;  later,  the  course 
was  extended  to  two  winters,  and  in  1897,  the  term  was 
lengthened  to  fourteen  weeks.  Of  the  beginning  of  the 
Dairy  Course,  Dean  Henry  has  written  as  follows:  "As 
Wisconsin  was  the  first  State  in  the  Union  to  inaugurate 
a  practical  brief  course  in  agriculture,  so  she  was  the 
first  to  establish  a  dairy  school,  and  the  old  frame  build- 
ing now  seen  at  the  University  farm  is  already  of  his- 
toric interest,  for  it  was  the  first  dairy-school  building 
in  America."  The  Dairy  School  opened  in  January, 
1890,  with  two  students.  The  following  summer  the 
Babcock  Milk  Test  was  published,  and,  as  a  result,  it  is 
supposed,  of  the  advertisement  thus  wrought,  more 
pupils  applied  for  admission  the  following  winter  than 
could  be  accommodated.  Seventy  were  actually  en- 
rolled. Hiram  Smith  Hall  was  occupied  a  year  later, 
and  was  enlarged,  in  1899,  so  as  to  accommodate  one 
hundred  and  fifty  pupils  at  one  time.  In  order  to  re- 
strict its  opportunities  more  largely  to  residents  of  the 
state,  a  substantial  non-resident  fee  was  attached  to  the 
course. 

The  combined  effect  of  these  several  agencies  upon  the 
agricultural  intelligence  of  the  state,  not  only  with  refer- 
ence to  the  practice  of  agriculture,  but  as  regards  the 
whole  mental  attitude  of  the  people  engaged  in  it,  is 


278  WISCONSIN 

simply  incalculable.  Toward  the  end  of  this  period  the 
university  was  sending  back  to  the  farming  communities 
of  the  state,  every  spring,  between  three  and  four  hun- 
dred young  farmers  who,  by  their  brief  but  intensive 
studies  of  the  winter,  had  caught  something  of  the  sci- 
entific spirit,  had  been  led  to  see  more  interesting  mean- 
ings in  the  tasks  of  the  farm,  and,  by  contact  with 
superior  men,  had  been  inspired  with  an  ambition  to 
become  good  agriculturists  and  good  citizens.  Nor  is  it 
altogether  of  trivial  account  that  many  of  them  carried 
back,  also,  something  of  respect  and  affection  for  the 
university.  A  concrete  expression  of  these  rather  vague 
generalities  appeared  toward  the  end  of  this  period  in 
the  founding  of  an  Experiment  Association  composed  of 
former  students  of  the  College  of  Agriculture,  mostly 
those  of  the  Short  Course.  A  brief  statement  of  the 
character  and  purposes  of  the  organization  is  contained 
in  the  following  excerpt  from  Dean  Henry's  Report  of 
1904: 

"One  object  of  this  Association  is  to  secure  new  and 
improved  varieties  of  seeds  and  plants  through  the  Ex- 
periment Station  and  other  sources,  test  them  on  the 
farms  of  its  members  and  select  and  disseminate  the  best 
among  the  surrounding  communities.  This  Association 
now  numbers  over  five  hundred  paying  members,  and 
its  work  is  already  so  great  that  it  was  recognized  by  the 
legislature  of  1903  in  an  annual  appropriation  of  $1,000 
for  its  support.  The  legislature  further  directed  the 
State  Printer  to  print  five  thousand  copies  of  the  annual 
report  of  the  Association,  free  of  charge  to  its  mem- 
bers. The  Association  is  now  conducting  extensive  ex- 
periments in  growing  alfalfa,  the  soy  bean,  improved 
varieties  of  corn,  oats,  etc.  When  the  annual  meeting 
of  this  body  is  held  in  the  State  Capitol  each  winter,  the 
attendance  is  larger  than  that  of  any  other  agricultural 
organization  in  the  State.    Mr.  R.  A.  Moore,  Angrono- 


TOWARDS  A  UNIVERSITY  279 

mist  of  the  Station,  is  able,  through  this  Association,  to 
almost  instantly  and  completely  come  in  touch  with  the 
whole  farming  community  of  the  State,  and  thereby  mat- 
ters of  importance  and  usefulness  at  once  find  a  vast 
audience. ' ' 

"When  these  words  were  written  the  College  of  Agri- 
culture was  entering  upon  a  new  phase  of  its  develop- 
ment. During  the  preceding  decade  it  had  expanded  so  as 
to  occupy  practically  all  of  South  Hall ;  had  accumulated 
an  array  of  lands  and  barns;  had  acquired  two  sub- 
stantial buildings,  Hiram  Smith  Hall  and  the  Horticul- 
tural-Physics Building,  besides  a  greenhouse,  a  residence 
for  the  dean,  a  central  heating  plant,  and  numerous 
minor  structures.  Finally,  in  1901,  the  legislature  voted 
$150,000  for  an  Agricultural  Hall,  adding  two  years 
later,  $25,000  for  fittings,  and  the  building  was  occupied 
in  the  autumn  of  1903.  Yet  thus  far  the  activities  of  the 
college  had  been  almost  exclusively  along  the  lines  of 
research  and  extension  just  noticed.  At  no  time  had 
there  been  a  dozen  students  of  collegiate  grade  pursuing 
a  course  in  Agriculture.  "When  the  central  building  was 
voted  there  were  but  six  students  in  the  Long  Course. 
The  new  building  was  an  impressive  structure,  200  feet 
in  length,  64  in  depth,  and  four  stories  in  height,  with 
an  octagonal  annex  in  the  rear,  66  feet  in  diameter, 
containing  a  library  and  reading-room  on  the  first  floor, 
and  an  audience  room  seating  nearly  a  thousand  per- 
sons, on  the  second.  To  those  who  saw  only  the  present, 
the  quarters  seemed  commodious  indeed  for  a  small  band 
of  investigators  plus  three  or  four  hundred  young  farm- 
ers who  received  instruction  each  winter.  But  the 
vision  of  its  projectors  was  soon  justified;  the  prelimi- 
nary work  had  been  done,  and  the  time  was  at  hand. 
Before  the  building  was  ready  for  occupation,  students 


280  WISCONSIN 

of  collegiate  grade  had  multiplied  from  six  to  sixty  and 
the  officers  of  the  institution  were  already  referring 
wistfully  to  the  days  when  the  professors  in  this  de- 
partment had  been  privileged  to  devote  almost  their 
entire  energies  to  research.  Twice,  in  this  period,  seri- 
ous mishap  had  threatened:  once  when  in  1895-96,  the 
New  York  Experiment  Station  tried  to  carry  off  Dean 
Henry  and  Professor  Russell,  and  again  in  1895-97,  when 
there  had  been  a  strong  movement  in  the  legislature  to 
separate  the  College  of  Agriculture  from  the  university 
and  remove  it  to  another  location;  but  wise  action  by 
President  Adams  and  the  regents  had  averted  both  dis- 
asters. The  year  of  Jubilee  rolled  round  and  found  no 
part  of  the  university  planted  more  four-square  with  the 
future  than  the  College  of  Agriculture. 

The  development  of  the  special  colleges  constituted 
one  phase,  and  an  important  one,  of  the  transition  from 
college  to  university.  Equally  fundamental  were  the 
changes  wrought  in  the  central  College  of  Letters  and 
Science.  Here  again  the  university  is  indebted  to  the 
initiative  of  President  Chamberlin.  Had  he,  in  his  sym- 
pathy with  natural  science,  elected  to  give  the  institution 
a  powerful  impetus  in  this  direction,  it  could  not  have 
been  considered  remarkable.  Nearly  half  a  million  dol- 
lars bad  just  been  expended  by  the  state  for  the  new 
group  of  science  buildings  and  the  nucleus  of  a  strong 
scientific  faculty  had  already  been  collected.  The  oppor- 
tunity for  a  special  development  was  obvious.  Nothing 
in  Chamberlin 's  administration,  therefore,  is  more  note- 
worthy than  the  largeness  of  spirit  in  which  he  set  about 
it  to  strengthen  the  humanities.  But  he  saw  with  great 
clearness  that,  if  the  humanities  were  to  be  maintained 
in  competition  with  science,  they  must  be  reanimated  by 
an  infusion  of  as  much  of  the  modern  spirit  as  was  com- 


TOWARDS  A  UNIVERSITY  281 

patible  with  their  nature.  "The  remarkable  advance 
which  the  natural  sciences  have  made  in  recent  years  as 
educational  factors,"  he  wrote  in  his  earliest  Report, 
"has  been  dependent  very  largely  upon  the  laboratory 
and  field  methods  which  have  given  them  vitality  and 
effectiveness.  Parallel  methods  in  other  departments  of 
study  undoubtedly  mark  a  coming  era  of  vigorous  growth 
and  commanding  influence."  When  he  surveyed  the 
university  for  signs  of  its  "intellectual  tendencies,"  as  he 
did  in  a  thoroughgoing  statistical  analysis  of  the  instruc- 
tion actually  given,  he  found  no  undue  emphasis  upon 
physical  science  so  far  as  concerned  the  subjects  taken 
by  students.  With  the  faculty  it  was  different.  In- 
vestigative science  was  already  strongly  entrenched  in 
the  laboratories  manned  by  Irving  and  Van  Hise,  by 
Birge,  and  Barnes,  with  whom  would  shortly  be  ranked 
several  scientists  at  the  Experiment  Station  and  Corn- 
stock  at  the  Washburn  Observatory.  But  in  the  humani- 
ties the  teaching  was  still  largely  of  the  older  type. 
Whenever,  therefore,  an  opportunity  offered,  new  men 
were  brought  in  who  had  shown  a  turn  for  investigation. 
They  were  usually,  perforce,  younger  men,  products  of 
Johns  Hopkins,  or  of  foreign  study,  or  both.  To  a 
chair  of  Experimental  Psychology,  then  a  distinct 
novelty,  came  Jastrow  in  1888;  two  years  later  came 
Haskins  in  History,  and,  the  year  after,  Hendrickson  in 
Latin.  These  were  all  Johns  Hopkins  men,  as  were 
Hubbard  in  English,  and  Ely  and  Scott  in  Economics 
who  were  added  to  the  faculty  in  1892.  Indeed,  the 
preponderance  of  Hopkins  men  in  the  younger  faculty  is 
said  x  to  have  given  considerable  food  for  thought  to 
President  Eliot  of  Harvard  when  he  visited  Wisconsin 
during    Chamberlin's   administration. 

1  By  Dr.  Chamberlin  in  a  conversation  with  the  author. 


282  WISCONSIN 

Besides  the  addition  of  new  men  to  the  faculty,  there 
were  two  closely  related  changes  in  the  College  of  Letters 
and  Science ;  the  modification  of  the  courses  of  study  and 
the  introduction  of  graduate  work.  The  type  of  edu- 
cation produced  by  the  old  "liberal"  college  course,  Dr. 
Chamberlin  has  said,  involved  a  spreading-out  process 
which  may  be  likened  to  a  tree,  which,  as  it  grows 
spreads  outward  in  wide-branching,  dispersed,  grace- 
ful limbs  and  foliage.  But  there  is  another  type  of  tree, 
as  the  pine,  which  keeps  straight  on  to  a  point.  The 
last  he  thought  of  as  another  possible  way  of  finishing 
a  course,  not  to  be  required  of  everybody,  but  useful  and 
deserving  development.  To  this  end  the  old  courses, 
such  as  the  classical  and  scientific,  were  more  scrupu- 
lously differentiated  each  in  its  particular  sphere.  Dur- 
ing Bascom's  last  year  the  General  Science  Course  had 
been  relieved  of  those  students  who  followed  it  chiefly 
to  escape  foreign  language  requirements,  by  establishing 
an  English  Course.  The  General  Science  Course  was 
now  strengthened  and  in  addition  a  special  Pre-Medical 
Course  was  organized  within  it.  The  English  Course,  in 
turn,  became  a  catch-all  for  undesirables  and,  just  at  the 
end  of  Chamberlin 's  term,  this  was  modified  so  as  to 
make  it  more  distinctively  a  course  in  English  language 
and  literature.  Coordinate  with  this,  the  Civic-Historical 
Course,  which  had  been  introduced  as  a  modified  form 
from  the  English  Course  was  developed  into  a  full  and 
independent  course.  At  the  same  time,  "for  the  purpose 
of  permitting  greater  concentration,  continuity,  and  thor- 
oughness in  the  leading  lines  of  study"  the  Group  Sys- 
tem was  adopted,  providing  a  basal  group  of  required 
studies  in  the  first  two  years  and  a  "major"  study 
running  through  the  last  two  years  of  the  course.  The 
general  purpose  of  this  system,  it  was  announced,  was 


TOWARDS  A  UNIVERSITY  283 

"to  introduce  university  methods,  in  the  modern  sense 
of  the  term,  more  largely  in  the  undergraduate  college 
course,  and  so  prepare  the  way  for  the  better  develop- 
ment of  graduate  work."  Other  innovations  in  relation 
to  undergraduate  studies  were  the  over-hauling  of  the 
"class  officer"  system  of  faculty  advisers  and  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  baccalaureate  thesis.  The  aim  of  the 
last  was  to  gather  the  student's  energies  to  a  focus  on 
some  special  subject  at  the  end  of  the  course.  It  will 
be  seen  that  the  differentiation  of  "Courses,"  as  well  as 
the  introduction  of  the  Group  System,  prepared  the  way 
for  the  growth  of  advanced  subcourses  and  thus  for 
more  intensive  study  within  the  boundaries  of  the  several 
departments. 

The  first  formal  step  toward  the  encouragement  of 
graduate  work  was  the  foundation,  in  Chamberlin's  first 
year,  of  eight  university  fellowships,  to  which  a  ninth 
was  added  through  the  private  generosity  of  John  John- 
ston of  Milwaukee.  The  annual  stipend  of  four  hundred 
dollars  which  was  provided  seems  small  enough  now; 
but  in  those  days,  it  was  counted  a  substantial  prize 
and,  together  with  the  honor  that  was  thought  to  attach 
to  it,  was  sufficient  to  induce  many  talented  graduates 
to  continue  their  studies  and  eventually  to  enter  aca- 
demic life,  who,  had  this  inducement  been  wanting, 
would  have  found  their  way  into  other  occupations. 
This  was  to  become  of  no  little  importance  in  building 
up  the  faculty.  Hitherto  only  here  and  there  a  graduate 
of  the  university  had  joined  the  academic  profession. 
Able  students  with  a  penchant  for  History  and  Civics 
usually  took  up  law.  A  few  of  Dr.  Birge's  "star  pupils" 
in  Biology  distinguished  themselves  in  medicine, — no- 
tably Robinson  '78,  Favill  and  Dodson  of  '80,  and 
Ochsner  '84.     The  fact  that,  in  1885,  Wisconsin  ranked 


284  WISCONSIN 

fifth  among  the  colleges  of  the  country  in  the 
number  of  its  graduates  enrolled  at  Johns  Hopkins  is 
evidence  that  the  movement  toward  graduate  work  had 
already  begun.  But,  except  in  the  Law  School,  which 
had  always  drawn  liberally  from  its  own  graduates,  the 
proportion  of  alumni  in  the  faculty  was  not  large.  Of 
twenty-two  professors  appointed  to  the  regular  faculty 
under  Chamberlin,  all  but  five  were  brought  from^the 
outside.  Of  those  promoted,  however,  four  had  grown 
up  within  the  institution,  namely,  Williams  '76,  in 
Hebrew  and  Hellenistic  Greek,  Hoskins  '83  in  Mechanics, 
Turner  '84  in  History,  and  Kremers  '88  in  Pharmacy. 
The  two  last  had  taken  the  doctorate  away  from  home, 
Turner  at  Johns  Hopkins  and  Kremers  at  Leipsic. 
Slichter  in  Mathematics  had  been  imported  as  an  in- 
structor. Among  the  graduates  of  a  decade  past,  Van 
Hise  79  had  just  been  advanced  to  a  professorship  in 
Metallurgy;  Olson  '84,  in  Scandinavian,  attained  the 
professorship  under  Adams:  Miss  Sterling  in  German, 
Miss  Gay  in  French,  and  Miss  Allen  in  Latin  have  given 
long  and  substantial  service  in  their  respective  depart- 
ments. H.  H.  Powers  '82  in  Economics,  Cajori  '83  in 
Mathematics,  Florence  Bascom,  B.A.  '82,  B.S.  '84,  in 
Geology,  Pammel  '85  in  Botany,  made  academic  careers 
elsewhere. 

These  were  but  scattering  contributions  to  the  ranks 
of  scholarship  and  higher  teaching.  Entrance  to  the 
profession  was  not  easy.  Except  in  one  or  two  depart- 
ments the  subdivision  of  classes  had  not  yet  become 
necessary.  The  enlargement  of  the  lower  faculty  began 
in  the  last  year  but  one  of  Chamberlin 's  term.  With  the 
initial  inducement  of  the  fellowships,  with  better  facili- 
ties for  advanced  study,  and  with  the  widening  of  the 
lower  footholds  in  the  profession,  there  was  an  immedi- 


TOWARDS  A  UNIVERSITY  285 

ate  change.  Fourteen  out  of  twenty-seven  instructors 
appointed  by  Chamberlin  were  already  on  the  ground, 
and  among  the  five  classes  that  graduated  under  him 
between  thirty-five  and  forty  men  and  women  can  be 
counted  as  having  definitely  espoused  the  academic  life. 
Some  of  these  failed  to  advance  and  drifted  into  sec- 
ondary teaching  or  into  other  occupations;  most  of  the 
women  succumbed  to  matrimony ;  but  a  fair  proportion 
of  the  men  reached  the  higher  ranks  of  the  profession, 
and  not  a  few  became  permanently  identified  with  the 
institution  or  won  their  spurs  in  its  service. 

Of  Chamberlin 's  first  class,  '88,  Russell  is  now  dean 
of  Agriculture,  and  Kremers  director  of  Pharmacy.  J. 
A.  James  in  History,  E.  R.  Johnson  in  Transportation 
and  Commerce,  K.  L.  Cowdery  in  French,  John  L.  Van 
Ornum  in  Civil  Engineering  found  careers  elsewhere. 
Richter  '89  was  with  the  College  of  Engineering  for 
twenty  years;  Mary  F.  Winston  finished  Ph.D.  (Mathe- 
matics) at  Gottingen;  J.  H.  Powers  became  professor 
of  Zoology  at  Nebraska.  From  "Mighty  '90,"  Cairns 
in  English,  Maurer  in  Mechanics,  L.  S.  Smith  in  Sur- 
veying and  W.  M.  Smith,  librarian,  are  still  with  the 
university;  Decker  has  been  mentioned  in  connec- 
tion with  Dairying;  Townley,  Astronomy,  is  at  Leland 
Stanford;  Bruce  is  dean  of  Law  at  North  Dakota; 
R.  H.  True,  Pharmacognosy,  transferred  from  the  Wis- 
consin faculty  to  the  Plant  Bureau  at  Washington.  Of 
the  class  of  '91,  McNair,  Mathematics,  now  president  of 
the  Michigan  College  of  Mines,  Cheney  in  Botany,  Kelly 
in  Hebrew,  Sanford  in  History,  Urdahl  in  Economics, 
have  had  longer  or  shorter  connections  with  the  institu- 
tion. The  class  of  '92  is  represented  in  the  faculty  by 
Kahlenberg,  chairman  of  the  Chemistry  Course,  by 
assistant-librarian   Dudley,    and   by   Pyre   in   English; 


286  WISCONSIN 

Libby  and  Running  in  History  and  Mathematics  were 
with  the  faculty  for  a  time ;  Ten  Eyck  has  been  con- 
nected with  several  agricultural  institutions;  Reinsch 
was  head  of  the  department  of  Political  Science  until 
appointed  minister  to  China,  at  the  beginning  of  Presi- 
dent Wilson's  first  term.  Upon  the  establishment  of 
the  fellowships  the  university  announced  itself  prepared 
to  confer  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Philosophy  and  Van 
Hise  was  its  first  recipient  (1892).  With  very  few 
exceptions  these  men  began  graduate  study  as  fellows 
of  the  university,  and  a  number  proceeded  to  the  doc- 
torate at  home,  but  broadly  speaking,  they  who  changed 
climate  for  a  part  of  the  graduate  period,  followed  the 
more  fruitful  course. 

The  rapid  expansion  of  the  middle  faculty  under 
Adams  was  indicative  of  a  reasonable  liberality  in  initial 
promotions.  Out  of  about  fifty  assistant-professors  ap- 
pointed during  the  next  decade,  some  thirty  were  pro- 
moted from  instructorships,  and  during  the  same  years 
twelve  of  the  local  faculty  were  promoted  to  professor- 
ships as  against  fifteen  who  were  called  from  abroad  to 
the  same  rank.  As  graduate  work  developed  it  became 
possible  to  hold  men  in  subordinate  positions  during  a 
prolonged  course  of  graduate  study,  and  conversely  the 
employment  of  large  numbers  of  instructors  and  assist- 
ants acted  as  an  indirect  subsidy  of  graduate  work. 
Many  of  the  early  seminaries  could  hardly  have  been 
maintained,  indeed,  without  this  support.  But  the 
rapidity  with  which  the  lower  ranks  expanded  in  pro- 
portion to  the  upper  faculty  indicates  that  promotion 
was  becoming  more  difficult.  So  far  as  this  was  the 
result  of  more  exacting  standards  it  cannot  be  criticised ; 
but  it  is  to  be  feared  that  the  explanation  is,  in  part  at 
least,  economic.     Too  frequently  the  bar  to  promotion 


TOWARDS  A  UNIVERSITY  287 

was  the  money  consideration.  And,  in  this  respect,  the 
wide  jump,  at  that  time,  lay  between  the  assistant- 
professorship  and  the  professorship.  A  promotion  from 
intruetor  to  assistant-professor  often  involved  only  a 
hundred  dollars  or  so;  while  the  next  advance  involved 
from  several  hundred  to  a  thousand  dollars.  Under 
these  circumstances  the  assistant-porfessorship  became  a 
pis-aller  for  men  of  considerable  attainments  and  use- 
fulness. Whether  justly  or  not,  too  many  of  the  middle 
faculty  felt  that  they  were  exploited  in  favor  of  the 
material  expansion  of  the  university,  and  sometimes 
that  they  were  unfairly  treated  in  comparison  with  men 
brought  from  abroad.  More  frankness  and  severity  in 
guarding  the  initial  approaches  and  more  liberality  in 
the  use  of  the  professorship,  or  at  least  of  the  asso- 
ciate professorship,  would  have  constituted  a  juster 
policy.  But  these  were  after  all  only  the  growing  pains 
of  a  rapidly  developing  organism.  It  cannot  be  said 
that  discontent  in  the  faculty  was  at  any  time  a  serious 
malady.  It  soon  came  to  be  understood  that  an  in- 
structoral  appointment  was  no  pledge  of  a  permanent 
career,  and  that,  even  where  there  was  initial  promo- 
tion, only  those  who  showed  exceptional  capacity  or  who 
were  exceptionally  shrewd  or  fortunate  in  the  pursuit  of 
a  specialty,  might  look  for  rapid  advancement.  In  its 
broad  workings,  moreover,  it  is  questionable  whether 
the  slowness  of  promotion  for  which  the  Wisconsin 
faculty  became  notorious  was  not  less  an  indictment 
than  a  distinction. 

The  establishment  of  the  Graduate  School  of  Political 
Science  and  History,  under  the  directorship  of  Dr.  Ely, 
marked  the  culmination  of  Chamberlin's  programme  for 
developing  the  "new  humanities' '  and  introducing  uni- 
versity methods  into  the  liberal  college.    It  was,  indeed, 


288  WISCONSIN 

one  of  the  boldest  and  timeliest  strokes  ever  made  by  a 
president  of  the  university.  The  genius  of  the  concep- 
tion consisted  partly  in  the  manner  in  which  it  made 
use  of  elements  of  strength  already  present,  but  hardly 
more  than  latent,  in  the  central  college.  The  popularity 
of  the  new  Civic-Historical  course  had  indicated  a  keen 
undergraduate  interest  in  the  subjects  of  this  group.  In 
fact,  the  university  already  possessed  a  strong  tradition 
of  historical  study.  The  most  creative  scholar  of  the 
faculty,  on  the  side  of  the  humanities,  had  been,  the 
professor  of  History.  Allen  had  produced  no  monu- 
mental work ;  but  he  was  a  fertile  and  original  writer  on 
historical  subjects,  wide  in  range,  exact,  delicate,  and 
far-seeing.  Although  much  of  his  work  was  critical — 
he  was  for  many  years  the  regular  historical  reviewer 
of  the  Nation — he  had  made  substantial  contributions  to 
knowledge,  chiefly  on  the  subject  of  village  communities 
and  land  holdings.  His  essay  on  The  Place  of  the  North- 
west in  American  History  contains  the  germ  of  the 
thesis  which  was  afterward  more  explicitly  and  robustly 
developed  by  Turner  in  his  Significance  of  the  Frontier 
in  American  History,  and  which  has  become  a  salient 
principle  in  the  interpretation  of  our  national  develop- 
ment. Under  Allen's  influence  a  spirit  of  investiga- 
tion had  been  fostered  among  the  students  in  his  depart- 
ment, of  which  one  expression  had  been  the  formation 
of  a  History  Club.  Professor  J.  C.  Freeman  declared,  at 
the  time  of  Allen's  death  in  1889,  that  his  classroom 
had  been  for  a  decade  the  scene  of  instruction  to  under- 
graduates which  might  well  have  been  imparted  to  the 
brightest  and  best-prepared  minds  in  the  country.  To 
Allen  succeeded  Turner,  who  was  vigorously  carrying 
modern  seminary  methods  into  the  utilization  of  the 
splendid  collections  of  the  Sate  Historical  Society;  and 


TOWARDS  A  UNIVERSITY  289 

with  Turner  had  been  joined  C.  H.  Haskins,  in  European 
History,  already  regarded  as  the  most  brilliant  of  the 
recent  products  of  Johns  Hopkins. 

All  things  go  back  to  men.  But,  in  the  domain  of  his- 
torical research,  much  depends  upon  books.  In  this 
respect  the  university  was  peculiarly  fortunate.  As 
early  as  1880,  the  availability  of  "the  valuable  property 
belonging  to  the  State  Historical  Society"  had  sug- 
gested to  the  board  of  regents  the  project  of  a  "College 
of  History."  The  accumulation  of  this  property  had 
been  primarily  the  work  of  Lyman  C.  Draper,  the  first 
secretary  of  the  society.  Through  his  foresight  and 
indefatigable  singleness  of  purpose,  historical  sources 
had  been  collected  which,  in  extent  and  importance,  sur- 
passed anything  west  of  the  Alleghenies,  and,  for  cer- 
tain phases  of  western  exploration  and  expansion,  were 
universally  unrivaled.  The  project  of  placing  the  li- 
brary of  the  Historical  Society  beside  that  of  the  uni- 
versity in  a  single  building  to  be  erected  on  the  campus, 
was  said  by  Dr.  Thwaites  to  have  been  first  suggested  by 
President  Chamberlin,  "late  in  1891."  The  project  was 
revived  under  President  Adams  and  pushed  to  a  suc- 
cessful consummation,  and  thus  the  nucleus  of  a 
great  liberary  became  substantially  an  asset  of  the 
university. 

Closely  allied  to  the  interest  in  historical  study,  in 
undergraduate  thought,  was  the  interest  in  contemporary 
questions  of  public  policy.  Undergraduate  interest  in 
this  direction  had  manifested  itself  in  a  peculiarly  vigor- 
ous development  of  the  so-called  "Literary  Societies." 
These  were  primarily  debating  organizations,  whose 
activities  focussed  in  their  annual  Joint  Debates,  prepa- 
ration for  v/hich  often  constituted,  for  the  participants, 
the  main  work  of  an  entire  year.     So  intense  was  the 


290  WISCONSIN 

spirit  of  rivalry,  indeed,  that  a  whole  society  was  fre- 
quently mobilized  for  the  collection  of  data  bearing  upon 
the  subject  of  the  debate.  Thus,  a  Joint  Debate  virtually 
resolved  itself  into  a  pair  of  seminaries  for  the  exhaustive 
study  of  some  question  of  public  import.  As  for  the 
champions,  they  were  the  pick  of  the  college,  and  su- 
premacy in  debate  was  looked  upon  as  the  most  likely 
promise  of  future  leadership  in  affairs.  That  the  men 
of  a  state  university  should  be  vitally  interested  in  the 
study  and  discussion  of  questions  of  public  policy  seemed 
natural  and  appropriate.  The  new  school  of  Political 
Science  and  History  had  the  assurance  of  strong  under- 
graduate support  from  the  start. 

But  the  large  forward  step  consisted  in  the  bid  that 
was  made  for  a  patronage  beyond  undergraduate 
boundaries  and  outside  the  state;  and  this  was  gained, 
in  the  first  instance,  through  the  reputation  of  the  di- 
rector. In  fact,  the  formation  of  the  school  was  doubtless 
dictated,  in  part,  by  the  necessity  of  justifying  the 
salary  of  Dr.  Ely  who,  in  this  respect,  was  placed  on  a 
level  with  the  deans  of  the  colleges.  Dr.  Richard  T. 
Ely,  then  head  of  the  department  of  Political  Economy 
in  Johns  Hopkins  University,  was  one  of  the  most  pro- 
gressive of  the  younger  group  of  investigative  econo- 
mists which  had  come  into  being  during  the  last  few 
years.  Professors  Turner  and  Haskins  had  been  his 
students  at  Johns  Hopkins.  Through  them,  and  espe- 
cially through  Professor  Turner,  the  president  was  led 
to  suspect  that  Dr.  Ely  would  not  be  unwilling  to  trans- 
fer to  Wisconsin,  provided  opportunities  were  offered 
for  a  powerful  development  of  graduate  work  in  his 
subject,  since  it  did  not  seem  likely  that  the  means  for 
such  a  development  could  be  found  at  Johns  Hopkins  in 
the  immediate  future.    It  was  an  audacious  idea.     The 


TOWARDS  A  UNIVERSITY  291 

emphasis  which  it  was  proposed  should  be  thrown  by  a 
state  university  upon  research  and  graduate  study  was 
the  more  startling  because  of  the  subject  of  that  em- 
phasis. Dr.  Ely  was  considered  radical  and  even,  in 
some  quarters,  rather  dangerous.  In  his  discussions  of 
the  Marxian  socialism  which,  hitherto,  had  had  little 
academic  recognition,  and  in  his  labor  investigations  and 
his  strictures  upon  corporative  abuses,  he  had  ventured 
on  burning  ground.  His  colleagues  in  the  East  were 
freely  of  the  opinion  that  he  could  not  "last  a  year"  in 
a  western  state  university.  Nor  was  the  test  long  on 
the  way.  In  the  summer  of  1894,  at  a  time  when  the  air 
had  been  electrified  by  serious  labor  disturbances  in  the 
Middle  West,  a  contest  was  precipitated  by  an  open 
attack  upon  Dr.  Ely.  Oliver  E.  Wells,  superintendent 
of  public  instruction,  and  ex-officio,  a  member  of  the 
board  of  regents,  in  a  letter  published  July  12,  in  the 
Nation,  and  republished  two  days  later  in  the  New  York 
Evening  Post,  accused  Dr.  Ely  of  misconduct  in  connec- 
tion with  a  printers'  strike  at  Madison,  and  incidentally 
pretended  to  expose  the  heretical  and  seditious  tendency 
of  his  teachings.  The  author  was  well  known  as  a 
breeder  of  dour  suspicions,  a  narrow  and  unfair  critic 
of  the  university,  whose  position  on  the  board  was  acci- 
dental and  anomalous.  The  regents  determined  to  sift 
the  matter  to  the  bran,  and,  as  they  little  doubted,  thor- 
oughly make  an  end  of  Wells  and  his  kind.  A  committee 
of  investigation  was  appointed  consisting  of  H.  W. 
Chynoweth,  John  Johnston,  and  H.  B.  Dale.  There 
was  a  formal  trial  of  Dr.  Ely,  presided  over  by  Regent 
Chynoweth.  The  result  was  a  debacle  for  the  accusers 
and  "a  complete  vindication  of  Dr.  Ely  and  the  teach- 
ing and  practises  of  our  university."  The  findings  of 
the  committee  were  published  in  broadside  and  Dr.  Ely 


292  WISCONSIN 

was  tendered  a  public  reception  by  the  citizens  of  the 
town  in  recognition  of  his  personal  triumph. 

Though  but  a  nine  days'  wonder  in  itself,  this  affair 
elicited  from  the  board  of  regents  the  following  declara- 
tion in  behalf  of  academic  freedom,  which  has  come  to 
be  regarded  as  part  of  the  Wisconsin  Magna  Charta: 

"As  regents  of  a  university  with  over  one  hundred 
instructors  supported  by  nearly  two  millions  of  people 
who  hold  a  vast  diversity  of  views  regarding  the  great 
questions  which  at  present  agitate  the  human  mind,  we 
could  not  for  a  moment  think  of  recommending  the  dis- 
missal or  even  the  criticism  of  a  teacher  even  if  some  of 
his  opinions  should,  in  some  quarters,  be  regarded  as 
visionary.  Such  a  course  would  be  equivalent  to  saying 
that  no  professor  should  teach  anything  which  is  not 
accepted  by  everybody  as  true.  This  would  cut  our 
curriculum  down  to  very  small  proportions.  We  cannot 
for  a  moment  believe  that  knowledge  has  reached  its 
final  goal,  or  that  the  present  condition  of  society  is 
perfect.  We  must  therefore  welcome  from  our  teachers 
such  discussions  as  shall  suggest  the  means  and  prepare 
the  way  by  which  knowledge  may  be  extended,  present 
evils  be  removed  and  others  prevented.  We  feel  that  we 
would  be  unworthy  the  position  we  hold  if  we  did  not 
believe  in  progress  in  all  departments  of  knowledge.  In 
all  lines  of  academic  investigation  it  is  of  the  utmost 
importance  that  the  investigator  should  be  absolutely 
free  to  follow  the  indications  of  the  truth  wherever  they 
may  lead.  Whatever  may  be  the  limitations  which 
trammel  inquiry  elsewhere  we  believe  the  great  state 
University  of  Wisconsin  should  ever  encourage  that  con- 
tinual and  fearless  sifting  and  winnowing  by  which  alone 
the  truth  can  be  found." 

This  noble  statement  of  principles  no  subsequent  gov- 
ernment has  had  the  hardihood  to  retract.  A  bronze 
tablet,  bearing  the  final  sentence,  was  presented  to  the 


TOWARDS  A  UNIVERSITY  293 

university  by  the  class  of  1910  and,  after  some  contro- 
versy, was  affixed  to  the  walls  of  University  Hall,  at 
the  left  of  the  main  entrance.1 

The  decade  which  followed  was  to  witness  rapid 
progress  toward  a  more  scientific  and  conscientious 
management  of  civic  and  economic  affairs.  The 
amelioration  of  the  lives  and  living  conditions  of  the 
working  classes,  the  cleaning-up  of  municipal  abuses, 
the  renovation  of  penal  and  charitable  institutions,  the 
readjustment  of  public  finance  and  the  redistribution 
of  taxation,  the  government  control  of  corporations  and 
public  utilities,  were  all  to  receive,  in  the  near  future, 
a  new  kind  of  attention.  The  intelligent  solution  of 
these  and  many  other  problems  would  require  the  col- 
lection and  digestion  of  much  scattered  information  and 
would  require,  too,  a  wide  dissemination  of  knowledge 
and  an  awakening  of  the  popular  conscience.  There 
lay  before  the  new  school  a  large  opportunity  of  which 
it  was  not  slow  to  take  advantage.  On  the  basis  of  its 
public  service  in  fostering  "  those  studies  which  tend  to 
raise  the  standard  of  good  citizenship,"  an  appeal  was 
made  for  contributions  from  private  sources  for  the 
purchase  of  necessary  books  and  for  the  securing  of 
eminent  lecturers  on  special  subjects.  Dr.  Ely  himself 
gave  courses  of  lectures  in  many  of  the  large  cities  of 
the  East  and  Middle  West,  devoting  the  proceeds  to 
these  purposes.  Many  thousands  of  dollars  were  thus 
added  to  the  sums  which  the  university  was  able  to  de- 
vote to  the  purposes  of  the  school.  Among  the  special 
lecture  courses  maintained  by  private  gifts,  one  by  Dr. 
A.  G.  Warner,  on  charities,  and  another  on  crime  by 
Dr.  Frederick  H.  Wines,  were  among  the  earliest  and 

1  The  sentences  were  written  by  President  Adams,  though  they 
have  sometimes  been  ascribed  to  the  chairman  of  the  committee 
which  reported  them  to  the  board  of  regents. 


294  WISCONSIN 

most  significant.  Each  became  the  basis  of  an  im- 
portant volume:  the  first,  of  Warner's  classic  on  Amer- 
ican Charities;  and  the  second  of  Wines'  Punishment 
and  Reformation. 

A  spirit  of  productiveness  and  the  habit  of  publication 
were  characteristic  of  the  school  from  the  start.  Dr. 
Ely  was  a  prolific  author  and  a  busy  editor.  His  repu- 
tation, combined  with  that  of  the  History  department 
and  the  fame  of  the  historical  collections,  drew  students 
from  considerable  distances.  Around  Ely's  first  semi- 
nary table  in  the  second  story  of  the  Fuller  Opera 
House,  and  then  in  the  Law  Building,  and  in  Turner's 
seminary  at  the  Historical  Library  in  the  old  Capitol, 
were  gathered  graduates  of  many  Western  and  of  some 
Eastern  universities.  The  fellows  of  the  school  were 
chosen  each  year  from  a  large  field  of  candidates  repre- 
senting all  parts  of  the  nation,  and  were  usually  men 
well  advanced  in  their  graduate  course  who  were 
pressing  on  to  the  completion  of  their  dissertations. 
More  than  half  the  doctorates  conferred  by  the  univer- 
sity during  these  years  were  taken  by  students  of  this 
school.  The  "  Economics,  Political  Science  and  His- 
tory" series  of  university  Bulletins,  edited  by  Professor 
Turner,  provided  a  ready  means  of  publication  for 
maiden  efforts.  Throughout  the  Adams  period,  the 
men  of  this  group  led  the  university  in  published  evi- 
dences of  productive  scholarship.  The  faculty  of  the 
school  took  a  prominent  part,  also,  in  the  University 
Extension  movement  which  was  inaugurated  in  Cham- 
berlin's  last  year,  so  that  the  work  of  the  school  was 
soon  widely  known,  not  only  in  professional  circles,  but 
among  the  people  of  the  state.  Its  graduates  went 
forth  into  the  faculties  of  other  colleges,  into  "  social 
settlements"  and  other  humanitarian  institutions,  and 


TOWARDS  A  UNIVERSITY  295 

in  course  of  time  into  various  branches  of  the  public 
service.  Successful  academic  careers  such  as  those  of 
David  Kinley  at  the  University  of  Illinois,  C.  J.  Bullock 
at  Harvard,  and  E.  D.  Jones  at  the  University  of  Michi- 
gan, and  the  winning  of  important  public  appointments 
such  as  that  of  B.  H.  Meyer  to  the  State  Railway  Com- 
mission and,  later,  to  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commis- 
sion, and  of  P.  S.  Reinsch  on  the  Pan-American  Confer- 
ence and  as  minister  to  China,  are  indications  of  the  dis- 
tinction attained  by  some  of  the  early  products  of  the 
school. 

After  eight  years  of  successful  activity  the  school 
began  to  disintegrate.  In  1900,  Professor  Scott  was 
drawn  off  to  become  director  of  the  newly-established 
School  of  Commerce  and,  the  same  year,  Professor  Tur- 
ner was  advanced  to  the  directorship  of  an  independent 
School  of  History.  A  year  later,  Reinsch  was  made  head 
of  a  distinct  department  of  Political  Science.  A  series 
of  changes  in  personnel  began  with  the  loss  of  Haskins 
(to  Harvard),  in  1902.  A  change  of  nomenclature  was 
adopted  soon  after  President  Van  Hise's  accession,  and, 
with  one  or  two  exceptions,  all  of  the  so-called 
"  schools  "  disappeared.  The  School  of  Political 
Science  and  History  had  had  its  day  and  served  its  pur- 
pose. 

Graduate  work  had  become  an  accepted  part  of  univer- 
sity effort.  Each  of  the  literary  departments  had  its 
small  group  of  advanced  students,  its  departmental 
seminary,  and  its  modest  programme  of  research.  The 
number  of  graduate  students  in  the  university  had  in- 
creased from  four  to  twenty-two  under  Chamberlin  and 
now  exceeded  one  hundred.  During  President  Adams' 
administration  the  old  text-book  type  of  recitation  was 
gradually  displaced  by  the  lecture  and  quiz  method  of 


296  WISCONSIN 

instruction,  supplemented  by  use  of  source  collections 
and  library  references,  with  independent  studies  and 
reports  by  members  of  the  class.  In  some  cases  the  new 
methods  were  too  advanced  for  the  students  involved 
and  there  was  some  confusion  in  consequence ;  but  they 
represented,  nevertheless,  a  distinct  advance  in  the 
technique  of  imparting  and  acquiring  knowledge.  Un- 
dergraduates were  taught  the  use  of  the  library,  and  the 
advanced  undergraduate  courses  were  developed  so  as 
to  lead  up  to  the  graduate  work,  both  in  subject  matter 
and  in  method. 

The  transition  in  methods  was  coincident  with  the 
increase  in  student  numbers  and  the  changes  in  the  con- 
stitution of  the  faculty  which  have  been  noticed.  The 
elementary  courses  in  languages,  English,  mathematics 
and  laboratory  subjects  were  the  first  to  be  subdivided 
and,  with  the  multiplication  of  advanced  courses,  ele- 
mentary instruction  fell  almost  entirely  into  the  hands 
of  younger  instructors.  Thus,  in  1898,  the  work  in 
English  Composition  was  reorganized  under  the  direc- 
tion of  Professor  Hubbard,  the  Harvard  "  theme  sys- 
tem "  was  introduced,  and  a  corps  of  instructors  was  em- 
ployed specifically  for  this  branch  of  teaching.  Simi- 
larly in  mathematics,  languages,  and  laboratory  subjects, 
the  student's  contacts  in  his  elementary  courses  came  to 
be  very  largely  with  the  younger  members  of  the  teach- 
ing force.  In  many  courses  of  advanced  and  inter- 
mediate grade,  classes  became  too  large  for  the  success- 
ful application  of  the  old  "question  and  answer"  style 
of  teaching,  and  thus  was  hastened  the  obsolescence  of 
the  older  type  of  class-room  teacher.  Probably  some  of 
the  best  and  some  of  the  worst  teaching  in  the  univer- 
sity was  to  be  found  in  over-grown  classes  of  this  kind 
during  the  transition  period. 


TOWARDS  A  UNIVERSITY  297 

Four  teachers  of  the  time  will  stand  out  in  the  minds 
of  alumni  as  representative  in  their  several  ways  of 
something  distinctive  in  the  vanishing  order.  John  W. 
Stearns  in  Philosophy  and  Pedagogy,  John  C.  Freeman 
in  English  Literature,  W.  H.  Rosenstengel  in  German, 
and  David  B.  Frankenburger  in  Rhetoric  and  Oratory, 
were  all  teachers  who  made  lasting  impressions  on  a 
large  number  of  Wisconsin  students.  The  service  of 
Stearns  began  toward  the  end  of  Bascom's  term;  his 
influence  passed  its  height  in  the  later  nineties  and  he 
retired  in  1904.  The  last  three  joined  the  faculty  in 
the  middle  of  Bascom's  administration  and  their  promi- 
nence waned  as  the  university  waxed,  near  the  end  of 
the  Adams  period.  Rosenstengel 's  service  was  termi- 
nated by  death  in  1900.  Professor  Freeman  was  absent 
on  a  diplomatic  mission  to  Copenhagen  for  three  years, 
between  1899  and  1902.  The  world  moved  during  his 
absence,  and  he  never  regained  his  former  hold  upon  the 
interest  of  the  college.  Professor  Frankenburger  died 
in  1906. 

Stearns  was  an  advocate  and  a  master  of  the  "Socratic 
method,"  applying  it  effectively  in  classes  of  eighty  or  a 
hundred  students.  The  power  of  testing  the  student's 
knowledge,  disciplining  his  faculties,  and  developing  a 
topic,  in  one  and  the  same  exercise,  he  had  to  a  remark- 
able degree.  This  was  accomplished  with  precision  and 
rapidity.  Each  member  of  one  of  these  large  classes 
could  expect  to  be  called  to  his  feet  every  third  recita- 
tion. If  his  answer  revealed  lack  of  preparation  or 
total  want  of  insight,  he  speedily  recovered  his  seat.  If, 
however,  the  reply  was  tangential,  the  student  was  skil- 
fully maneuvered  until  he  had  worked  the  matter  out 
and  was  able  to  see  and  state  it  clearly.  No  teacher  I 
have  seen  at  work,  with  the  possible  exception  of  Dr. 


298  WISCONSIN 

Birge,  has  equalled  Stearns  in  conveying  to  his  students 
the  ability  to  see  the  implications  of  a  text  and  to  ad- 
vance a  subject  by  process  of  reasoning. 

Where  Stearns  sharpened  the  student 's  faculty  in  the 
pursuit  of  truth,  Freeman  intrigued  him  with  admira- 
tions of  wit  and  grace.  In  this  case  the  texts  examined 
were  the  choice  masterpieces  of  English  literature  and 
above  all  of  English  poetry.  Not  a  scholar  in  the  mod- 
ern sense,  Freeman  had  abundance  of  learning,  discur- 
sive and  exact,  wherewith  he  embroidered  every  text. 
His  method  lay  less  in  calling  out  the  energies  of  the 
pupil  than  in  enriching  them  through  the  pouring  forth 
of  his  own  knowledge  and  fancy.  His  class-room  was 
the  home  of  leisure  and  delightful  contemplation. 
After  the  intoning  of  an  exceptionally  noble  passage, 
the  teacher  often  remained  for  some  moments  gazing 
dreamily  out  of  the  window,  in  a  pause  during  which 
the  very  presence  of  beauty  seemed  to  pervade  the 
room.  Or  reverie  would  give  way  to  liveliness  and  anec- 
dote, or  intensify  to  eloquence.  It  was  a  purely  personal 
method,  if  method  one  may  call  a  manner  which  relied 
so  much  upon  temperament  and  inspiration.  When 
these  failed,  all  failed;  but  hundreds  of  Wisconsin  stu- 
dents owed  to  this  teaching  their  first  effective  introduc- 
tion to  the  charms  of  polite  literature  and  urbane  learn- 
ing. 

Eosenstengel  met  fewer  students  than  the  others; 
but  there  were  few  indeed  of  those  whom  he  met  that 
ever  forgot  his  hours  of  inquisition.  He  did  not  inspire 
affection  or  even  admiration;  in  some  of  those  whom  he 
most  egregiously  bullied  he  doubtless  planted  opposite 
sentiments.  Yet  there  was  a  certain  nobility  and  an 
element  of  culture  in  his  flashing  intolerance  of  slovenli- 
ness or  ineptitude  in  the  work  of  his  pupils.     As  for  af- 


TOWARDS  A  UNIVERSITY  299 

fection,  the  teacher  who  most  inspired  that  feeling  was 
Frankenburger.  If  ever  a  teacher  "spent  himself" 
upon  his  students,  it  was  "  Frankie."  He  was  almost 
too  patient  with  crass  ignorance,  awkwardness,  and  folly. 
"I  can  see  how  that  might  be,"  was  his  stereotyped 
class-room  utterance.  This,  and  his  kindly,  expectant 
manner  drew  light  from  the  dullest  corners.  But  his 
most  important  field  of  labor  was  outside  the  class-room. 
Merely  to  enumerate  the  directions  in  which  he  gave 
his  service  to  groups  and  individuals  would  require  a 
paragraph.  Day  and  night,  he  crucified  time  and  energy 
for  the  benefit  of  aspirants,  promising  and  unpromising, 
in  oratory,  dramatics,  and  debate.  The  cruel  multipli- 
cation of  these  activities  toward  the  end  of  his  life  sub- 
merged him  and  wore  him  out.  He  never  complained. 
Grateful  remembrance  of  him  unites  the  men  of  seven 
college  generations. 

Each  of  these  was  a  teacher  of  the  earlier  type,  such  as 
Dr.  Birge  once  characterized  as  needing  no  equipment 
except  "  a  room  where  he  could  meet  his  students  and  a 
place  to  hang  his  hat. ' '  The  new  type  of  teacher  was  far 
more  dependent  upon  appliances  and  peculiarly  for  the 
humanities,  new  and  old,  this  meant  an  abundance  of 
books.  The  inadequacy  of  the  library  impressed  Presi- 
dent Adams,  at  first  glance,  as  the  most  glaring  de- 
ficiency of  the  institution.  More  thorough  investigation 
modified,  but  did  not  essentially  change  his  opinion. 
The  expenditure  for  the  library  in  Chamberlin's  last 
year  had  been  a  trifle  over  three  thousand  dollars ;  this 
was  nearly  trebled  during  the  very  first  year  of  Adams' 
management.  But  nothing  revolutionary  could  be  ac- 
complished in  building  up  a  library  until  larger  and 
more  suitable  quarters  were  provided.  A  movement  was 
immediately  set  on  foot  to  secure  from  the  state  the 


300  WISCONSIN 

means  for  erecting  upon  the  Lower  Campus  a  suitable 
fire-proof  building,  to  which  might  be  removed  both  the 
general  library  of  the  university  and  the  collections  of 
the  State  Historical  Society,  as  well  as  the  special  library 
of  the  Wisconsin  Academy.  The  proposal  to  make  this 
a  joint  enterprise  was  accepted  by  the  Historical  Society 
early  in  1893.  An  appropriation  of  $420,000  for  the 
purpose  was  proposed  in  the  legislature  that  winter,  but 
failed  to  carry.  Two  years  later,  there  was  granted  a 
"  preliminary  appropriation  "  of  $180,000  which  was 
biennially  augmented  until  the  completion  of  the  build- 
ing (the  northwest  wing  excepted)  at  a  final  cost  of 
$750,000.  The  building  was  occupied  in  the  summer  of 
1900.  From  what  hazards  its  contents  had  been  re- 
moved was  convincingly  shown  when  a  very  few  years 
later,  the  old  State  Capitol  was  gutted  by  fire. 

The  Library  stands,  as  it  should,  in  the  university 
foreground,  not  more  as  to  location  than  in  dignity  and 
aesthetic  aspiration.  In  its  exterior  design  and  decora- 
tion, and  in  its  materials  and  appointments  throughout, 
fewer  concessions  to  economy  were  made  than  in  any 
building  which  has  been  erected  by  the  state,  except  the 
new  State  Capitol.  That  the  building  was  secured  so 
early  is  due  in  considerable  measure  to  the  enthusiasm 
of  President  Adams,  who  was  influential  in  securing  the 
consent  of  the  Historical  Society  to  the  joint  enterprise 
and  in  obtaining  from  the  legislature  the  means  to  carry 
it  out.  Many  regard  it  as  peculiarly  the  memorial  of 
his  administration.  During  the  five  years  that  it  was 
under  construction,  he  served  on  all  the  important  com- 
mittees connected  with  the  building  and  "  took  a  deep 
interest  in  the  architectural  details,  especially  of  the  ex- 
terior. ' '  One  of  his  last  public  appearances  was  at  the 
dedication  of  this  building,  which  may  well  stand  as  the 


TOWARDS  A  UNIVERSITY  301 

material  symbol  of  the  progress  of  the  university  under 
his  leadership.  For  the  new  Library,  with  its  stately 
exterior,  its  marble  floors  and  stair-cases  and  rich  yet 
pure  decoration,  its  spacious  reading-room,  its  separate 
suites  for  periodicals,  for  maps  and  manuscripts,  docu- 
ments, newspaper  files,  departmental  seminaries,  its 
cataloguing  and  administration  offices  in  either  wing,  its 
museum  floor,  and  its  ample,  clean-shelved,  well-lighted 
stacks — to  those  acquainted  with  the  former  quarters  of 
either  collection — seemed  to  represent  a  fifty  years'  leap 
of  civilization. 

And  the  Library  was  only  the  most  conspicuous  ex- 
ample of  improvement  in  the  exterior  surroundings 
which  were  henceforth  to  lend  comfort,  convenience, 
and  brightness  to  the  pursuits  of  teacher  and  taught. 
The  acquisition  of  the  Gymnasium,  in  1894,  gave  a  new 
character  to  the  physical  and  social  habits  of  the  uni- 
versity population.  It  was  like  the  addition  of  both 
bath-room  and  drawing-room  to  a  house  that  possessed 
neither.  The  next  year  Camp  Randall  (through  the 
prompt  action  of  the  president  and  regents  acquired 
from  the  county  Agricultural  Society  at  the  ridiculous 
price  of  $25,000)  was  dedicated  to  athletics  and  equipped 
with  a  new  playing  field  and  running  track  and  a  cov- 
ered stand.  The  Boat  House  had  been  erected  through 
student  initiative  two  or  three  years  earlier  and  pro- 
vided facilities  that  had  been  sadly  wanting  for  the 
enjoyment  of  the  lake.  The  regents  added  a  rowing 
tank  for  the  use  of  the  crews,  in  1897.  In  1896  Ladies' 
^Hall  was  rebuilt  and  much  enlarged  and  its  appoint- 
ments greatly  improved,  especially  in  the  addition  of 
a  gymnasium  for  women. 

All  of  these  improvements,  it  will  be  noticed,  were  for 
the  comfort  and  recreation  of  the  student  outside  the 


302  WISCONSIN 

class.  None  of  the  building  operations  of  the  first  six 
years  of  President  Adams'  administration  made  any 
appreciable  addition  to  the  rooms  for  instruction  avail- 
able to  the  central  departments  of  the  university.  By 
this  time  the  literary  departments  had  far  outgrown  the 
quarters  provided  for  them  in  University  Hall.  Many 
large  classes  were  compelled  to  migrate  to  Science  Hall, 
where  the  Science  and  Engineering  courses  were  already 
elbowing  one  another  rather  savagely,  or  to  the  Law 
Building,  or  to  join  forces  with  the  "Agrics"  in  South 
Hall.  Probably  the  inconvenience  of  such  arrange- 
ments was  more  serious  than  were  their  frequent  incon- 
gruities. Yet,  whilst  unfolding  the  charms  of  Keats  or 
the  Categorical  Imperative,  to  be  conscious  of  the 
bleached  skeleton  of  a  horse  on  the  left,  and  a  highly 
colored  model  of  the  bovine  extravagance  in  stomachs, 
on  the  right,  had  its  intangible  disadvantages.  The  re- 
modeling of  University  Hall  and  construction  of  the 
South  "Wing,  in  1899,  more  than  doubled  its  capacity 
and  greatly  relieved  the  congestion  and  jostling  of 
classes,  while  making  it  possible  to  supply  members  of 
the  literary  faculty,  most  of  them  for  the  first  time,  with 
private  offices.  The  completion,  soon  afterward,  of  the 
new  structures  for  Engineering  and  Agriculture  already 
noticed  in  appropriate  connections,  still  further  facili- 
tated the  congenial  grouping  of  departments.  The  new 
scale  of  magnificence  upon  which  the  state  so  quickly 
learned  to  deal  with  the  university  helped  Governor 
Peck  to  his  witticism,  that  he  had  never  gone  through 
the  university  but  that  the  university  had  gone  through 
him  for  a  million  dollars.  All  told,  about  a  million  and 
a  half  was  expended  for  buildings  in  the  ten  years  be- 
tween 1893  and  1902. 

That  the  improvement  in  externals  and  especially  in 


I 

H 
ifl 

& 

B 


TOWARDS  A  UNIVERSITY  303 

recreational  facilities,  upon  which  the  preceding  para- 
graphs have  laid  an  almost  indecent  emphasis,  should 
be  associated  with  the  administration  of  Adams  is  not  at 
all  an  accident.  It  is  one  of  those  coincidences  between 
a  general  tendency  and  the  influence  of  a  particular 
leader  which  we  frequently  encounter  in  social  history. 
Though  he  by  no  means  fell  short  in  appreciation  of  the 
true  inwardness  of  learning,  President  Adams  attached 
far  more  importance  than  either  of  his  immediate  prede- 
cessors, to  the  amenities  of  university  life.  Steven- 
son's observation,  that  it  is  no  mean  part  of  a  gentle- 
man's education  to  know  a  good  cigar,  might  not  have 
scandalized  him  beyond  all  measure.  His  stipulation,  at 
the  time  of  his  appointment,  that  an  annual  allowance  of 
five  hundred  dollars  for  entertainment,  be  appended  to 
his  salary,  produced  a  raising  of  eyebrows  in  some  quar- 
ters, and  the  twitter  excited  by  the  sounds  of  busy  car- 
pentry at  the  President's  House,  the  summer  before  his 
arrival,  was  not  confined  to  the  birds.  With  the  aid  of 
Mrs.  Adams,  whose  private  means  and  social  gifts  con- 
tributed to  this  end,  the  new  head  exercised  a  hospital- 
ity quite  beyond  what  the  university  had  known  or  has 
ever  known.  There  were  homes  in  the  city  of  equal  or 
greater  taste  in  entertainment,  but  they  had  been  very 
sparingly  accessible  to  the  members  of  the  university. 
On  Friday  nights  the  President's  House  was  "  open  " 
and  people  actually  went  and  went  in  great  numbers. 
To  many,  students  and  faculty  alike,  whose  lives  had 
been  barren  of  material  refinements,  the  possessions  of 
the  house,  its  books  and  trophies  of  European  travel,  its 
table,  and  the  subjects  and  manner  of  its  conversation 
shed  a  new  light  upon  social  intercourse. 

Until  ill-health,  first  of  one  and  then  of  both,  cur- 
tailed their  social  activity,  the  president  and  his  wife 


304  WISCONSIN 

were  often  seen  in  public.       They  had  the  happiness, 
moreover,  of  making  their  presence  at  a  public  function 
seem  the  effect  of  a  vital  interest  rather  than  a  perfunc- 
tory official  appearance.     A  good  play  was  quite  certain 
to  bring  them  to  the  theater.     Any  form  of  cultivated 
recreation  received  the  encouragement  of  their  patron- 
age or  their  hospitality.     It  was  to  extend  and  elevate 
the  appreciation  of  music,  primarily,  that  the  School  of 
Music  was  organized  in  1894,  and  the  formation  of  the 
Choral  Union  was  directly  due  to  the  president's  influ- 
ence.    One  of  the  warmest  desires  of  President  Adams 
was  to  hear  more  singing  amongst  the  undergraduates. 
"  A  great  university  is  a  singing  university,"  he  fre- 
quently said.       In  some  measure  he  had  his  wish,  for 
student  singing  increased  very  noticeably  during  his 
time  and,  with  one  or  two  exceptions,  all  the  best  Wis- 
consin songs  date  from  that  period.     In  all  spontaneous 
activities  of  the  undergraduates,  their  social  recreations, 
their  athletic  contests,  their  dramatic  and  literary  en- 
deavors, the  president  and  Mrs.  Adams  took  an  affec- 
tionate and  unaffected  interest,  desiring  only  that  these 
might  be  controlled  toward  their  legitimate  objects  of 
actually  enriching  the  life  of  the  university  and  refining 
its  manners.     The  buoyant  spirit  which  characterized 
student  enterprises  under  this  encouragement  has  al- 
ready been  touched  upon  and  will  find  larger  space  in 
the  succeeding  chapter,  which  presents  in  some  detail 
the  social  changes  and  the  rise  of  student  "  activities  " 
that  centered  in  this  period. 

In  the  autumn  of  1901,  President  Adams  and  his  wife 
bade  the  university  farewell,  seeking  restoration  for  both 
in  the  gentler  climate  of  California,  but  for  both  in  vain. 
President  Adams  died  the  following  July,  and  Mrs. 
Adams  a  few  months  afterward.     In  taking  leave  of  the 


TOWARDS  A  UNIVERSITY  305 

university  they  left  as  earnests  of  their  regard,  Presi- 
dent Adams  his  private  collection  of  books,  which  he  pre- 
sented to  the  University  Library,  and  Mrs.  Adams  a 
large  number  of  charming  objects  illustrative  of  the 
household  art  of  foreign  countries  and  cities,  which 
were  transferred  from  her  house  to  the  Historical  Mu- 
seum. In  addition,  Mrs.  Adams  distributed  amongst  her 
university  friends  many  cherished  belongings, — busts, 
sets  of  books,  furniture,  linens,  and  the  like,  as  tokens  of 
a  continued  interest  in  their  welfare.  But  how  devoted 
was  the  affection  which  these  two  had  come  to  cherish 
for  the  university  of  their  adoption  was  not  fully  known 
until  death  had  claimed  them  and  it  was  learned  that 
substantially  the  entire  estate  of  both  had  been  be- 
queathed to  the  university  for  the  endowment  of  fellow- 
ships in  English,  Greek,  and  Modern  History.  It  was 
the  most  considerable  and  inspiriting  benefaction  the 
institution  had  received  at  private  hands,  since  the  gift 
of  Governor  Washburn.  The  proof  that  those  whom  it 
so  highly  regarded  had  thought  of  and  wished  it  so  well, 
heartened  the  university  in  pledging  itself  anew  to  the 
best  of  the  faith  that  was  in  it. 


XI 

STUDENT  LIFE 

After  the  dormitories  ceased  to  be  adequate,  and  were 
finally  abandoned  so  far  as  the  men  were  concerned, 
Madison  became,  for  the  average  undergraduate,  a  wil- 
derness of  boarding-houses  and  scattered,  unorganized 
rooming  places.  Student  initiative  produced  the 
"  boarding-club,"  modelled  after  the  old  cooperative 
messes  of  the  dormitories ;  but  these  were  usually  dreary 
affairs  of  little  social  interest  and  ruinous  cuisine.  Oc- 
casionally, by  maintaining  a  superior  table  and  by  care 
in  the  selection  of  members  and  of  the  annual 
"  steward,"  a  club  prolonged  its  existence  for  several 
years  and  gained  a  certain  social  distinctiveness.  Such 
was  the  "Pickwick"  club  which  continued  well  into 
the  nineties.  But  in  most  cases,  the  club  was  an  ephem- 
eral organization  promoted  by  some  enterprizing  citizen 
of  the  student  community  whose  main  qualification  as  a 
caterer  was  a  masterful  ambition  to  procure  free  board. 

These  conditions  fostered  the  growth  of  the  Greek 
Letter  Societies.  A  chapter  of  Phi  Delta  Theta  had 
been  established  before  the  Civil  War;  but  the  existing 
foundations  began  with  the  formation  of  a  chapter  of 
Beta  Theta  Pi  in  1873.  Five  others  followed  during 
the  Bascom  period,  viz.,  Phi  Kappa  Psi  in  1875,  Chi  Psi 
in  1878,  Phi  Delta  Theta  in  1880,  Sigma  Chi  in  1884. 
Similar  organizations  among  the  women  started  with  the 
installation  of  Kappa  Kappa  Gamma  (1875),  followed 

306 


STUDENT  LIFE  307 

by  Delta  Gamma  (1881)  and  Gamma  Phi  Beta  (1885). 
At  the  neighboring  college  of  Beloit,  whence  they  were 
first  introduced,  the  fraternities  were  genuine  secret  so- 
cieties, existing  only  sub  rosa.  They  were  not  prohibited 
at  Wisconsin,  though  Bascom  opposed  them  with  the  full 
strength  of  his  moral  influence.  By  the  students  they 
were  regarded,  at  first,  as  rivals  of  the  Literary  So- 
cieties; subsequent  hostility  was  based  on  their  social 
pretensions  and  their  machinations  in  college  politics. 
The  "  Interfrat,"  the  most  pretentious  social  function 
of  the  year  and  a  forerunner  of  the  later  ''Prom,"  was 
first  given  in  Assembly  Hall  in  1881.  Emphasis  upon 
toilet,  more  elaborate  decorations,  music  and  refresh- 
ments, carriage,  flowers,  and  the  extension  of  the  hours 
of  dancing  to  3  A.  M.,  distinguished  it  from  the  usual 
"class  parties."  It  was  a  source  of  great  joy  to  the 
privileged  few  and  of  corresponding  heart-burnings 
amongst  the  excluded  "barbs."  A  Social  Club  with  a 
calendar  of  eight  dances  was  organized  by  the  non-fra- 
ternity men  in  1888,  on  the  ground  that  the  fraternities 
"  monopolized  the  class  dances."  In  1890,  the  chair- 
man of  the  sophomore  dance  was  accused  in  the  college 
paper  of  having  so  managed  the  function  that  only  the 
fraternities  were  represented.  About  the  same  time  oc- 
curred the  notorious  "  Pepper  Party," — so  called  be- 
cause of  the  means  adopted  by  a  band  of  unchivalrous 
' '  barbs  ' '  to  demoralize  a  ball  given  for  the  delegates  to 
a  national  convention  of  Delta  Gamma.  The  warfare 
between  "  barb  "  and  "  frat  "  was  bitterest  and  most 
ignominious  in  the  years  just  before  and  around  1890. 

In  the  years  that  followed  several  influences  com- 
bined to  mitigate  this  unfortunate  state  of  feeling.  The 
earlier  fraternities  were  very  small  and  clannish  organi- 
zations whose  significance  consisted,  for  the  most  part, 


308  WISCONSIN 

in  the  secret  rites  of  their  "  down  town  "  lodge-rooms, 
their  close  personal  friendships,  and  their  social  preten- 
sions. The  introduction  of  Delta  Upsilon  (non-secret), 
in  1885,  and  the  reorganization  of  Beta  Theta  Pi,  a  year 
or  two  later,  on  a  broader  basis  of  membership,  were 
salutary  events.  The  chapter-house  movement,  which 
began  soon  afterward,  might  seem,  at  first  thought,  to 
tend  toward  increased  exclusiveness ;  but  it  had,  on  the 
whole,  the  opposite  effect,  for  it  encouraged  enlargements 
of  membership  and,  therewithal,  less  bigoted  criterions 
of  selection. 

The  first  fraternity  to  maintain  a  chapter  "  lodge" 
was  Chi  Psi  in  1881 ;  but  this  remained,  for  several  years, 
little  more  than  a  rendezvous.  In  the  autumn  of  1888, 
however,  the  Betas  and  Phi  Psis  and,  among  the  sorori- 
ties, Gamma  Phi,  moved  into  rather  large  houses  and, 
very  soon  thereafter,  "  a  house  of  its  own  "  had  became 
the  first  requirement  of  a  fraternity.  The  furnishing 
and,  later,  the  acquisition  of  chapter-houses,  were  large- 
ly managed  and  financed  by  alumni  of  the  several  fra- 
ternities. It  should  not  escape  attention  that,  even  to 
the  present  time,  the  direct  contributions  of  alumni  to 
the  material  welfare  of  the  university  and,  we  might  add, 
their  vital  contacts  with  undergraduate  life,  have  come 
about  mainly  through  fraternity  associations. 

As  might  be  expected,  President  Adams  was  favor- 
able to  fraternities.  Not  only  did  he  prize  them  for 
the  superior  social  advantages  which  they  afforded  a 
considerable  number  of  the  patrons  of  the  university,  but 
he  was  wise  enough  to  see,  too,  that  one  remedy  for  the 
evil  of  fraternities  was  more  fraternities.  Hence,  though 
he  showed  them  no  undue  partiality,  he  certainly  put  no 
obstacles  in  their  way.  Probably  it  was  due  to  other 
causes,  however,  that  the  fraternities  increased  greatly 


STUDENT  LIFE  309 

in  size  and  number  during  his  regime.  Membership  in 
a  fraternity  soon  ceased  to  be  a  badge  of  very  marked 
distinction.  As  the  university  population  became  larger 
and  its  activities  more  numerous  and  varied,  many 
cross-lines  blurred  the  sharpness  of  the  old  demarcation 
between  "  frat  "  and  "  non-frat."  Soon  after  the 
Armory  became  available,  a  series  of  "  military  hops  " 
was  inaugurated  which  helped  to  democratize  the  lighter 
life  of  the  undergraduates. 

But  the  most  potent  force  in  moderating  the  old  class 
consciousness  was  the  development  of  intercollegiate 
athletics.  Many  of  the  ' '  honors  ' '  which  had  been  most 
ardently  sought,  places  on  debating  teams  and  on  stu- 
dent publications,  class  offices,  and  the  like,  had  been 
won  in  the  arena  of  college  politics  and  sometimes  by 
rather  unbeautiful  methods.  Athletic  honors,  in  the 
very  nature  of  the  case,  were  won  by  performance.  So- 
cial pretensions  counted  for  little  on  the  athletic  field. 
Amongst  team-mates  and  amongst  the  spectators  who 
cheered  them  on,  in  a  common  cause,  the  old  affiliations 
of  "barb"  and  "frat"  were  largely  forgotten.  In 
this  respect,  at  least,  athletics  had  a  wholesome  effect 
upon  the  student  morale. 

Intercollegiate  sports  came  in  with  a  rush  after  1890. 
Within  three  or  four  years  football,  rowing,  and  the 
field  and  track  contests  became  the  distinctive  college 
games,  overshadowing  baseball  and  tennis,  which  had 
flourished  during  the  decade  before.  There  had  been 
a  baseball  team  as  early  as  1870,  whose  list  of  players 
contains  the  names  of  several  well-known  alumni.  The 
earliest  notice  of  an  intercollegiate  contest  I  have  en- 
countered, is  a  reference,  in  1873,  to  two  games  of  base- 
ball with  Beloit.  A  substantial  passage  in  President 
Bascom's  baccalaureate  sermon,  The  Seat  of  Sin  (1876), 


310  WISCONSIN 

is  devoted  to  a  condemnation  of  "athletic  sports,  college- 
regattas,  and  ball  games,"  indicating  that  he  foresaw 
and  deprecated  their  introduction  at  Wisconsin.  In 
1881,  the  area  now  known  as  the  Lower  Campus  was  ac- 
quired by  the  regents,  to  provide  "  convenient  and  ap- 
propriate grounds  for  gymnastic  and  kindred  exercises." 
The  presence  of  a  convenient  practice  field  gave  an  im- 
mediate stimulus  to  competitive  baseball.  A  systematic 
series  of  "home  and  home"  games  was  inaugurated  in 
the  spring  of  '81,  between  Wisconsin,  Evanston  (North- 
western University),  and  Racine  College,  and  there  was 
directly  organized  the  Northwestern  College  Baseball 
Association,  comprising  these  three  and,  a  little  later, 
Beloit  College.  At  the  end  of  eight  seasons  in  this  com- 
pany Wisconsin  bragged  of  six  "  pennants." 

Meantime,  many  of  the  familiar  corollaries  of  college 
sport  had  been  discovered.  For  a  few  weeks  each 
spring  there  was  all  needful  enthusiasm  and  excitement. 
Victorious  teams  were  met  at  the  train ;  parades  and  ora- 
tory flourished;  ash-barrels  and  horseblocks  went  up  in 
flames,  and  cement  sidewalks  were  encouraged.  Excur- 
sions accompanied  the  team  to  Beloit,  whence,  in  case 
of  victory,  they  not  infrequently  departed  amid  salvos 
of  jeers,  with  an  occasional  salute  of  eggs.  The  home 
games  were  gala  occasions;  all  the  fashion  and  gayety 
that  college  and  town  could  muster  congregated  at  the 
Dane  County  Fair  Grounds ;  every  red  gown  and  parasol 
was  requisitioned,  and  the  cardinal  rippled  from  the 
whips  and  caparisons  of  the  "showiest  turn-outs  in 
town."  Banks  of  college  rowdies  "rattled  the  pitcher  " 
from  the  base  lines  and  monopolized  the  college  yell. 
The  attendant  vices  of  betting  and  drinking,  which 
President  Bascom  had  dreaded,  were  by  no  means  un- 
known.      The  former,  however,  resulted  for  the  most 


STUDENT  LIFE  311 

part  in  no  graver  abuse  than  an  unequal  distribution  of 
pie  at  the  boarding  clubs.  After  an  unusual  victory  an 
unusual  volume  of  voices  from  the  old  Hausmann  brew- 
ery on  State  Street  might  apprise  the  belated  citizen  that 
somebody  was  a  very  good  fellow  which  nobody  could 
deny. 

Of  course  nobody  did  deny  it.  Baseball  had  its 
heroes,  no  less  renowned  than  oratory  and  debate. 
Waldo  and  Connolly,  classmates  of  '85,  a  formidable 
battery,  were  long  the  theme  of  impressive  reminiscence. 
The  later  eighties  gave  to  fame  "  Maggie  "  "Williams 
of  the  keen  eye  and  the  shrewd  head.  "  Taffy  "  Shel- 
don, the  stone  wall  catcher  and  long  hitter,  "  Bob  " 
McCoy,  "  Jim  "  McCully,  "  Jimmie  "  Lund,  "  Babe  " 
Pape,  and  many  other  wearers  of  affectionate  diminu- 
tives. 

As  a  test  of  college  prowess,  baseball  had  little  compe- 
tition at  Wisconsin  until  1889.  Then  thoughts  became 
rife  of  other  forms  of  contest  and  of  trying  conclusions 
with  more  distant  institutions.  The  other  sports  had 
been  litttle  developed.  There  was  a  tennis  association 
with  about  thirty  members,  and  return  matches  with 
Beloit  had  begun  in  1887.  Local  field  and  track  contests 
had  been  held,  from  time  to  time,  since  1880 ;  rowing  and 
football  had  been  tried  sporadically,  as  local  sports. 

All  of  the  foregoing,  except  football,  are  fair  weather 
games;  football  is  a  rough  weather  sport.  The  other 
games  come  naturally  in  the  spring  when  the  academic 
year  is  waning ;  the  season,  in  our  latitude,  is  short  and 
the  weather  uncertain.  Baseball,  tennis,  and  rowing 
are  all  handicapped  by  these  conditions.  The  most 
vigorous,  the  most  oxygenated  of  games,  whether  for 
player  or  spectator,  football  thrives  in  rude  weather  and 
exhilarates  the  opening  weeks  of  the  college  season.     Its 


312  WISCONSIN 

alleged  brutality  is  of  a  blend  which  has  always  been 
relished  by  healthy  British  and  American  youths.  It 
unites  in  larger  measure  than  any  other  game  all  phases 
of  physical  prowess,  mental  strategy,  and  moral  control. 
With  all  counts  against  football,  it  is  not  altogether  of 
ill  omen  that  it  should  have  become  the  typical  American 
intercollegiate  game. 

If  one  might  believe  all  who  have  given  utterance  on 
the  subject,  there  have  been  several  "first"  football  teams 
at  Wisconsin.  K.  D.  Mallory,  of  the  class  of  '84,  claims 
to  have  brought  the  first  oval  football  on  the  campus, 
probably  in  the  autumn  of  1880.  The  late  J.  A.  Ayl- 
ward  was  captain  of  a  team  in  1883.  In  the  fall  of  1886 
came  A.  A.  Bruce,  sometimes  called  "the  father  of  foot- 
ball." Bruce  was  a  familiar  figure  as  he  kicked  his  foot- 
ball about  among  the  baseball  players  on  the  Lower 
Campus.  There  was  a  team  organized  in  1888;  but  so 
far  as  I  can  discover,  the  first  contest  with  an  outside 
team  was  a  game  of  American  Rugby  played  November 
23,  1889,  against  an  eleven  representing  the  Calumet 
Club  of  Milwaukee  and  chiefly  composed  of  graduates 
of  Eastern  colleges.  Each  season  thereafter  brought  an 
advance  in  the  technique  of  training  and  play,  and  a 
widening  competition.  In  the  latter  respect,  the  foun- 
dation of  modern  football  was  the  development  of 
rivalry  with  Minnesota  and,  later,  with  Chicago.  Michi- 
gan had  challenged  as  early  as  1887,  was  met  occasion- 
ally, the  first  time  in  1892,  but  never  became  a  favorite 
enemy. 

Minnesota  had  a  head  start  of  two  or  three  years ;  its 
teams  were  always  heavy  and  powerful,  and  it  had  the 
further  advantage  of  coaching  by  Eastern  players,  of 
whom  there  were  always  a  few  living  in  the  "  Twin 
Cities."     The  team  of  1890,  after  victories  over  several 


STUDENT  LIFE  313 

of  the  old  baseball  rivals,  secured  a  game  with  Minne- 
sota near  the  end  of  the  season.  A  defeat  at  Minne- 
apolis, 63  to  0,  opened  Wisconsin's  eyes  to  the  possi- 
bilities of  the  game  and  gave  her  a  score  to  settle  for 
many  years  to  come.  It  was  not  until  the  fifth  meet- 
ing with  Minnesota  that  she  obtained  a  victory.  Only 
once,  under  Ed  Ahara's  captaincy  in  1891,  was  there 
a  sharp  contest.  Wisconsin  was  reinforced  in  1892  by 
T.  U.  Lyman  of  Grinnel  who  changed  his  college  in  the 
hope  of  realizing  his  chief  athletic  ambition,  which  was, 
to  defeat  Minnesota  at  football.  The  next  year  Parke 
H.  Davis  of  Princeton  served  as  coach  and  also  played 
on  the  team.  Both  seasons  proved  disastrous.  Finally, 
in  1894,  Wisconsin  turned  the  trick. 

The  '94  game  was  played  on  the  Lower  Campus,  in 
the  presence  of  six  thousand  spectators  drawn  from  all 
parts  of  the  state.  Nothing  approaching  the  event  in 
magnitude  nor  in  intensity  of  excitement  had  ever  been 
known  at  Madison  in  connection  with  athletics.  It  was 
a  desperately  contended  game,  Wisconsin  scoring  the 
sole  touchdown  by  a  brilliant  rally  near  the  opening  of 
the  second  half.  The  Wisconsin  "  line-up  "  on  this  his- 
toric occasion  was  as  follows :  quarterback  and  captain, 
T.  U.  Lyman ;  halfbacks,  J.  C.  Karel  and  F.  W.  Nelson ; 
fullback,  J.  R.  Richards;  center,  F.  Kull;  guards,  J.  E. 
Ryan  and  G.  W.  Bunge;  tackles,  J.  F.  A.  Pyre  and  W. 
Alexander;  ends,  W.  H.  Sheldon  and  H.  F.  Dickinson; 
the  coach  was  H.  0.  Stickney  of  Harvard.  Several  of 
these  were  veterans,  but  Richards,  Karel,  Nelson,  Pyre, 
Alexander  and  Sheldon  played  their  last  season  under 
Phil  King's  coaching  in  1896. 

The  last  game  on  the  Lower  Campus  marked  the  be- 
ginning of  a  triumphal  era  in  Wisconsin  athletics.  The 
elevens  of  '96,  '97  and  '01  were  all  great  teams,  and  in 


314  WISCONSIN 

the  six  years  from  1896  to  1901  inclusive,  there  was  but 
one  defeat  by  Minnesota,  the  6  to  5  game  of  1900. 
Meanwhile  Chicago  had  come  into  prominence  under  the 
able  coaching  of  Professor  Stagg;  the  otherwise  suc- 
cessful teams  of  '98  and  '99  lost  to  Chicago.  Outstand- 
ing features  of  these  years  were  the  excellent  coaching  of 
Phil  King  and  the  tremendous  spirit  with  which  stu- 
dents and  alumni  "  backed  "  their  players.  Their 
loyalty  had  few  discouragements,  it  is  true;  yet  a  win- 
ning team  could  hardly  receive  ampler  homage  than  did 
the  over-matched  eleven  that  held  Chicago  to  a  single 
touch-down  in  1898. 

Harmonious  team  work,  intelligence,  and  an  intrepid 
fighting  spirit  had  more  to  do  with  Wisconsin's  primacy 
in  football,  during  these  years,  than  the  performance  of 
exceptional  individuals.  Old  followers  of  the  game  re- 
member with  pleasure  the  grace,  no  less  than  the 
phenomenal  distance  and  accuracy,  of  Pat  O'Dea's 
kicking,  the  unwithstandable  blocking  and  line  rushing 
which  made  John  Richards  the  dean  of  Wisconsin  ?s  full- 
backs, the  volcanic  performances  of  H.  Cochems,  the 
broken  field  running  of  "  Ikey  "  Karel  and  E.  Cochems, 
the  diving  of  "Norsky"  Larsen,  the  pluck  of  "  Activ- 
ity "  Tratt,  the  brilliant  play  of  Brewer,  Abbot,  and 
Juneau  at  end,  the  finished  tackle  play  of  Art  Curtis; 
but  memory  warms  most  in  recalling  that  indomitable 
team  spirit  which  so  often  snatched  victory  from  behind 
and  was  never  more  keen  than  when  the  other  side  was 
insolent  enough  to  believe  the  game  in  hand. 

The  most  daring  undergraduate  conceit  of  those  days 
was  the  introduction  of  eight-oar  racing.  Rowing  is  the 
most  arduous  of  college  sports  and  the  most  difficult  to 
finance.  The  nearest  college  rival  was  at  Ithaca  and  in- 
deed, eventually,  Wisconsin  had  to  go  beyond  the  Alle- 


STUDENT  LIFE  315 

ghenies  for  competition.  The  enterprise  owed  its  in- 
ception in  the  last  analysis  to  the  perennial  challenge 
of  Lake  Mendota,  but  in  the  first  instance  to  the  enthusi- 
asm and  perseverance  of  C.  C.  Case  '93,  who,  from  the 
hour  he  entered  college,  missed  no  opportunity  to  gain 
disciples  for  the  sport  of  his  fancy. 

In  the  spring  of  1892  a  pair  of  eight-oar  gigs  was  pur- 
chased with  money  secured  by  subscription,  and  a  class 
regatta  was  held.  During  the  summer  following,  an 
eight,  made  up  of  men  selected  from  the  class  crews, 
defeated  a  pick-up  crew  representing  the  Chicago  Navy, 
in  the  latter 's  regatta  at  Oeonomowoc.  The  next 
spring  an  abandoned  paper  shell  was  purchased  from 
Harvard  and  a  crew  composed  largely  of  football  ath- 
letes was  put  in  practice.  The  first  "  'varsity  "  eight 
was  defeated  by  the  Delaware  Boat  Club  of  Chicago  in 
a  close  two  mile  race  on  Lake  Mendota.  From  1894  to 
1898  there  was  an  annual  two  mile  race  with  the  Minne- 
sota Boat  Club,  financed  by  the  summer  hotels  at  Lake 
Minnetonka.  Under  the  coaching  of  Andrew  O'Dea, 
who  brought  his  Australian  "  yarra-yarra  "  stroke  to 
Wisconsin  in  1895,  the  "  varsity "  soon  showed  its 
superiority  in  this  competition,  and,  in  the  spring  of 
'98,  invaded  the  East,  defeating  the  Yale  freshmen  by 
ten  lengths  in  a  two  mile  race  on  Lake  Saltonstall.  In 
June,  1899,  the  Wisconsin  eight  made  its  first  appear- 
ance on  the  Hudson,  finishing  second  in  a  four  mile  race 
against  Pennsylvania,  Cornell,  and  Columbia.  There- 
after, the  Eastern  trip  of  the  Wisconsin  crews  (for  a 
freshman  crew  was  soon  included)  was  an  annual  event, 
until  the  prohibition  of  intercollegiate  rowing,  by 
faculty  action,  in  1914.  Notwithstanding  the  difficul- 
ties which  attended  the  maintenance  of  rowing  at  Wis- 
consin, only  the  apparently  conclusive  proof  of  its  in- 


316  WISCONSIN 

juriousness  to  the  physical  constitution  of  the  partici- 
pants could  have  justified  the  banishment  of  this  other- 
wise beautiful  sport  from  the  realm  of  intercollegiate 
competition. 

In  1895,  through  the  influence  of  Professor  Stagg,  a 
track  and  field  meet  was  held  at  Chicago,  which  led  to 
the  establishment  shortly  after  of  the  Western  Intercol- 
legiate. Wisconsin  entered  spiritedly  into  this  new 
branch  of  competition,  won  the  first  meet,  and,  in  1897, 
romped  away  with  a  good  share  of  the  firsts,  scoring  47 
points  to  the  19  of  her  closest  rival,  Michigan.  She  was 
represented  at  this  time  by  a  remarkable  group  of  ath- 
letes, including  Richards  in  the  hurdles,  Kraenzlein  in 
the  low  hurdles  and  jumps,  Maybury  in  the  dashes,  H. 
Cochems  in  the  weights,  and  Copeland  in  the  distances. 
On  track  and  field  as  on  the  gridiron,  in  1897,  Wisconsin 
"  was  first  and  the  rest  nowhere."  To  say  nothing  of 
the  water ! 

A  decade  earlier  Wisconsin  undergraduates  had  been 
looking  beyond  the  circle  of  small  colleges  with  whom 
they  had  striven  for  laurels  in  baseball  and  tennis,  and 
were  demanding  competition  with  the  larger  institu- 
tions of  the  Northwest.  Now  there  were  thoughts  of 
claiming  recognition  among  the  older  institutions  of  the 
East.  In  the  Summer  of  1897,  Richards,  Maybury,  and 
Kraenzlein  ran  against  the  pick  of  the  eastern  athletes 
at  Manhattan  Field.  Two  years  later  the  football  team, 
headed  by  Pat  O'Dea,  surprised  Yale  in  a  tight  game  at 
New  Haven.  Between  these  two  events,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  Wisconsin  eight  had  twice  appeared  to  advan- 
tage in  eastern  waters.  The  fine  showing  of  the  '99 
"  varsity  "  at  Poughkeepsie,  its  hard  luck  and  good 
sportsmanship,  won  many  hearts.  Thereafter,  for  sev- 
eral years,  the  western  visitors  drew  to  their  colors  a 


STUDENT  LIFE  317 

large  number  of  unattached  "  rooters  ''  at  the  big  race 
on  the  Hudson.  No  doubt  athletic  enthusiasts  over- 
valuated  this  form  of  "  advertising."  It  is  worthy  of 
observation,  nevertheless,  that  the  extension  of  athletic 
prestige  went  hand  in  hand  with  widening  recognition 
of  the  university  in  academic  circles  and  a  rapid  increase 
of  patronage  from  without  the  state. 

It  is,  in  our  opinion,  the  heaviest  count  against  inter- 
collegiate sports  that  they  have  combined  with  social  dis- 
tractions and  other  frivolous  pursuits  to  throw  into  the 
shade  those  voluntary  intellectual  activities  whose 
honors  were  once  the  most  coveted  prizes  of  an  under- 
graduate career.  The  forensic  and  literary  tradition 
was  vigorous  in  the  nineties,  and  a  goodly  number  of  in- 
stitutions yet  in  vogue  at  Wisconsin  originated  in  those 
creative  years.  The  so-called  "  Literary  Societies  " 
were  still  a  dominant  factor  in  student  life.  Athena? 
and  Hesperia  had  had  an  unbroken  activity  since  the 
earliest  years  of  Chancellor  Lathrop.  They  had  estab- 
lished just  after  the  Civil  War,  the  Joint  Debates  de- 
scribed in  the  preceding  chapter,  to  which  Philomathia 
was  admitted  in  1890.  The  long  and  unbroken  pros- 
perity of  these  societies,  as  compared  with  the  many 
ephemeral  organizations  which  had  arisen  and  lan- 
guished in  the  meantime,  Professor  Frankenburger  at- 
tributed to  their  "loyalty  to  an  ideal  that  places  debate 
first,  that  puts  attendance  at  literary  societies  and  per- 
formance of  duty  there,  above  all  personal  pleasure,  all 
amusement,  all  social  obligation."  Hard  knocks,  "  the 
giving  and  taking  of  blows,  contest,  intellectual  contest  " 
had  been  "  their  very  life."  This  austere  ideal,  im- 
posed with  astonishing  severity,  made  the  debating  clubs 
for  decades  a  distinguishable  force  in  undergraduate 
life.     Upon  the  formation  of  the  Northern  Oratorical 


318  WISCONSIN 

League  in  1890-91,  they  sponsored  Wisconsin's  entrance 
and  participation  therein,  and  they  organized  a  year  or 
two  later  the  Intercollegiate  Debates'. 

The  college  paper  from  1886  until  1892  was  the 
weekly  Mgis  which,  in  addition  to  news  jottings  and 
brief  editorials,  filled  its  pages  with  the  prize  orations, 
commencement  essays,  and  similar  effusions  of  under- 
graduates. Its  chief  predecessor,  the  University  Press, 
had  been  founded  in  1870,  by  George  W.  Raymer  and 
James  W.  Bashford.  After  its  first  year,  when  it  was 
conducted  as  a  monthly,  it  ran  as  a  semi-monthly  until 
1882.  Thereafter  it  ran  as  a  weekly  until  supplanted 
by  the  Mgis.  From  1881  until  1885  there  was  a  rival 
weekly,  the  Badger,  of  which  F.  J.  Turner  was  one  of 
the  editors.  Upon  the  establishment  of  the  Cardinal, 
the  Mgis  changed  to  a  bi-weekly  and,  in  1895,  became 
a  literary  monthly.  Its  lineal  descendant  was  the  (old) 
Wisconsin  Literary  Magazine,  founded  in  1903.  As 
for  the  Daily  Cardinal,  a  few  imagined,  when  the  first 
issue  appeared  in  the  spring  of  1892,  that  it  was  any- 
thing more  than  a  whimsical  experiment.  Yet  the  Car- 
dinal was  very  much  alive  the  following  autumn,  and 
its  twenty-fifth  anniversary  was  commemorated  a  few 
days  after  our  entrance  into  the  Great  War.  The 
Sphinx,  the  only  magazine  of  student  humor  whose  affla- 
tus has  survived  an  initial  exertion  or  so,  made  its  bow 
in  the  autumn  of  '99,  accompanied — perhaps  to  keep 
the  university  in  equilibrium — by  the  Alumni  Magazine. 
The  first  Junior  Annual  was  the  Troclws  of  the  class  of 
1885.  Inability  to  agree  with  the  faculty  as  to  the  con- 
tent of  the  next  year's  book  resulted  in  its  suppression 
and,  still  another  class  failing  to  carry  through  a  similar 
project,  it  remained  for  the  class  of  '88  to  appropriate 
the  title  liberated  by  the  death  of  the  old  weekly  and 


STUDENT  LIFE  319 

bring  out  the  first  annual  Badger.  A  book  of  that  title 
has  since  recorded  student  achievements  and  assailed 
reputations  annually,  growing  year  by  year  more  am- 
bitious and,  now  and  then,  reversing  all  the  jokes  by 
bankrupting  the  Junior  Class. 

Not  many  of  the  editors  and  authors  who  originated 
or  sustained  the  student  publications  made  their  mark 
as  mature  writers.  For  general  authorship,  two  old 
2Egis  contributors,  Zona  Gale  '95  and  Grant  Showerman 
'96,  are  doubtless  most  widely  known.  Of  the  younger 
"  Sphinx  crowd,"  Philip  Allen  died  too  early  for  his 
certain  talent  to  win  him  prominence,  and  Horatio 
Winslow,  the  cleverest  of  undergraduate  authors  at 
Wisconsin,  has  not  made  the  impression  he  deserves  to 
make  on  the  general  public.  Bert  on  Braley's  facile 
talent  for  rhyme  and  rhythm  is  still  unwearied  and 
seems  to  find  him  a  perennial  welcome  in  newspaper 
columns  and  the  lighter  periodicals.  As  journalists,  J. 
J.  Schindler  '89,  an  2Egis  editor,  and  W.  W.  Young, 
the  first  editor  of  the  Cardinal,  have  been  successful, 
the  one  at  St.  Paul,  the  other  in  New  York.  In  the  ma- 
jority of  cases,  the  intellectual  fertility  which  mani- 
fested itself  as  literary  ambition  in  student  days,  in 
mature  life  has  been  directed  into  other  channels,  and 
if  to  the  production  of  books,  then  books  of  a  profes- 
sional character. 

But  it  is  not  as  incubators  of  authorship,  primarily, 
that  the  student  publications  are  to  be  prized,  any  more 
than  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  college  athlete  will  become 
a  professional  sportsman.  They  are  arenas  for  the  ex- 
ercise of  the  mental  graces  and  they  display,  when  suc- 
cessful, the  manners  and  sentiments  of  the  mimic  world 
to  which  they  belong.  So  judged,  the  admirable  col- 
lege author  is  he  who  catches  best  the  tone  of  the  life 


320  WISCONSIN 

about  him  and  most  graciously  adds  to  and  enlivens  it. 
Judging  so,  we  should  rate  high  the  sprightly  sketches 
which  Floyd  McClure  contributed  to  the  old  Mgis  and 
the  bantering  vers  de  societe,  songs,  and  dramatic  skits 
that  fell  so  lightly  from  him.  How  well  he  hit  off  the 
smart  undergraduate's  attitude  to  the  public,  in  the 
chorus  beginning : 

For  we  are  jolly  college  students 

And  we  are  out  to  be  viewed  as  a  sight, 

Both  in  our  personal  estimation 

And  in  yours  we  are  certainly  bright — 

as  sung  by  the  Glee  Club,  the  Banjo  and  Mandolin 
Clubs  accompanying,  in  one  of  those  concerts  which 
seemed  so  brilliant  and  are  so  thoroughly  forgotten! 
And  this  reminds  us  that  much  of  the  best  writing  was 
not  for  the  publications  at  all,  but  for  occasional  uses 
of  this  sort. 

The  willingness  of  the  college  student  "  to  be  viewed 
as  a  sight  ' '  displayed  itself  in  a  series  of  tours  inaugu- 
rated in  the  late  eighties  by  the  musical  organizations 
just  mentioned.  Later  the  clubs  saw  signs  that  the 
stereotyped  concert  was  beginning  to  pall  upon  the 
public,  and  resorted  to  various  devices  for  introducing 
novelty  into  their  entertainments,  appearing  one  season 
(1897)  in  the  guise  of  "  The  U.  W.  Minstrels."  A 
growing  activity  in  dramatics  became  pronouncedly  vig- 
orous and  began  to  take  organized  form  just  before 
1900.  The  practice  of  presenting  a  "senior  play"  as  a 
feature  of  Commencement  Week  was  started  by  the 
class  of  1898.  The  following  autumn  a  highly  success- 
ful dramatic  contest  was  staged  at  the  Fuller  Opera 
House.  The  winning  team,  composed  of  Walton  Pyre, 
Louis  M.  Ward,  Mary  Freeman,  and  Janet  M.  Smith, 


STUDENT  LIFE  321 

presented  an  arrangement  of  scenes  from  Othello.  The 
lively  interest  stimulated  by  this  event  led  to  the  immedi- 
ate foundation,  by  the  men,  of  the  "Haresfoot"  dramatic 
club.  The  women  followed  suit  with  "  Red  Domino," 
and  not  long  afterward,  the  "  Edwin  Booth  "  society 
was  organized  through  the  instigation  of  Professor 
Frankenburger,  who  thought  the  "  Haresfoot  "  activi- 
ties too  shallow.  The  early  "Haresfoot"  productions 
were  bustling  farces;  "  Red  Domino  "  and  "  Edwin 
Booth"  ran  to  more  substantial  modern  comedies,  with 
an  occasional  excursion  into  Shakspere. 

After  a  time,  there  began  to  be  added  to  the  interest 
of  amateur  presentation,  the  interest  of  local  subject- 
matter  and  authorship.  The  Budlong  Case  (1907),  by 
Lucien  Cary  and  George  B.  Hill,  was  a  well-built  farce 
with  lyrical  interpolations  and  much  good-humored  and 
amusing  satire  of  local  manners  and  persons.  It  was 
the  first,  and  one  of  the  best,  of  a  series  of  "  original  " 
pieces,  selected  through  competition  and  staged  by  the 
Junior  Class,  in  connection  with  the  annual  "  Prom." 
The  same  spring  "  Haresfoot  "  revived,  for  a  joint  tour 
with  the  Glee  Club,  a  two-act  sketch  of  local  authorship, 
entitled,  Hie  Professor's  Daughter  (first  given  on  tour 
in  1900) .  In  this  piece  the  feminine  factor  was  supplied 
by  disguise.  Horatio  Winslow's  Fate  and  the  Freshman 
came  the  following  autumn,  and,  a  few  months  later, 
the  club's  first  triumph  in  musical  burlesque,  The 
Dancing  Doll  by  Winslow  and  Stothard,  was  given  on 
tour,  all  the  feminine  roles,  including  the  dancing 
choruses,  being  presented  by  male  actors.  During  this 
fruitful  year  and  the  years  immediately  following, 
original  production  was  carried  to  a  pitch  and  volume 
which  undergraduates  of  more  recent  times  have  been 
unable,  or  unwilling,  to  sustain. 


322  WISCONSIN 

The  notice  of  these  last  ephemera  of  our  social  history- 
has  carried  us  forward  into  the  early  years  of  the  Van 
Hise  presidency.  I  shall  not  go  on  to  record  the  count- 
less interests  and  organizations  which  have  continued 
to  add  to  the  distractions  of  student  existence,  but  shall 
conclude  this  survey  with  a  brief  account  of  the  par- 
ticulars in  which  the  activities  of  the  recent  era  differ 
from  those  of  former  times.  Their  increase  in  mass 
is  concretely  shown  in  the  increasingly  formidable  bulk 
of  the  year-book  of  the  Junior  Class.  This  is,  of  course, 
largely  accounted  for  by  the  increase  in  the  size  of  the 
university.  But  it  is  not  the  mass  or  number  of  con- 
temporary activities  which  mainly  differentiate  them 
from  those  of  an  earlier  time;  that  is  a  mere  matter  of 
arithmetic.  The  interesting  difference  is  something  far 
less  easy  to  describe  or  explain.  Perhaps  the  most  essen- 
tial differences  arise  out  of  the  degree  to  which  student 
activities  have  become  the  objects  of  faculty  control  and 
supervision. 

From  one  point  of  view,  the  development  of  extra- 
curricular interests,  which  in  the  course  of  four  or  five 
college  generations  changed  the  whole  character  of  col- 
legiate life,  furnishes  an  exhilarating  spectacle  of  under- 
graduate enthusiasm  and  vitality.  Had  it  been  in  the 
nature  of  the  new  activities  to  keep  within  temperate 
bounds,  there  would  be  good  reason  to  regret  that  they 
did  not  continue  to  be  what  they  originally  were,  mat- 
ters purely  of  student  concern.  They  provided  many 
voluntary  outlets  for  surplus  energy  and  invention 
which  were  preferable  to  the  old  ones,  and  they  were 
the  occasion  for  much  incidental  training,  under  highly 
stimulating  conditions.  But  moderation  is  not  com- 
panionable with  the  youthful  virtues.  It  is  the  usual 
history  of  undergraduate  enterprises  that  they  have  in- 


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STUDENT  LIFE  323 

clined  to  extravagance,  each  organization  trying  to  outdo 
its  rivals  and  each  generation  to  eclipse  its  predecessor. 
The  "  rushing  "  tactics  of  the  fraternities,  the  exces- 
sive expenditures  of  time  and  money  in  social  enter- 
tainments, the  tours  of  the  musical  and  dramatic  or- 
ganizations, occasional  exhuberances  of  the  periodicals, 
even  the  price  sometimes  paid  for  forensic  triumphs, 
and,  above  all,  the  abuses  of  athletics  under  student 
management,  have  all  exemplified  this  principle.  The 
time  came  when  the  faculty  had  to  remind  the  enthusiast 
that  the  university  is  a  place  where  some  studying 
ought  to  be  done  and  lay  a  curbing  hand  on  extra-cur- 
ricular pursuits. 

About  the  middle  of  President  Adams'  administration 
the  need  for  improved  means  of  establishing  standards  of 
social  expedience  and  propriety  became  apparent,  and 
the  office  of  "dean  of  women"  was  created.  Miss 
Annie  C.  Emery,  a  woman  of  very  distinguished  quali- 
ties, was  appointed  to  this  post  in  1897,  and  it  was  under 
her  influence  that  the  women  of  the  university  united 
in  forming  the  Self-Government  Association.  The 
prestige  directly  acquired  by  the  "S.  G.  A."  did  much 
to  dignify  social  relations  between  the  men  and  women 
of  the  institution.  But  many  social  extravagances  were 
unaffected  by  this  form  of  control  and  the  faculty  soon 
found  it  necessary  to  exercise  a  determined  restraint 
upon  social  affairs,  through  a  committee  appointed  for 
this  purpose. 

Although  the  men  of  the  university  had  been  accus- 
tomed for  years  to  manage  independently  the  student 
enterprises  in  which  they  were  interested,  a  decade 
elapsed  before  a  disposition  toward  general  self-govern- 
ment showed  much  strength  amongst  them.  Before  this 
came  about,  the  faculty  had  been  constrained  to  assert 


324  WISCONSIN 

control  over  nearly  all  student  undertakings,  over  those 
especially  which  involved  the  receipt  and  disbursement 
of  large  sums  of  money.  President  Van  Hise,  after  his 
accession,  exerted  himself  to  arouse  an  interest  in  the 
discipline  of  the  university  on  the  part  of  the  men,  and 
eventually  brought  about  a  considerable  degree  of  or- 
ganized self-control ;  first  through  an  informal  Student 
Conference  Committee  and  later  by  means  of  a  Student 
Court.  But  the  time  had  passed  when  anyone  thought  of 
returning  to  the  students  the  responsibility  for  their 
own  affairs  which  they  might  have  retained  if  things 
had  gone  a  little  differently.  We  therefore  have  the 
quaint  situation,  that  the  students  are  charged  with 
considerable  disciplinary  responsibility,  for  the  repres- 
sion of  disturbances,  control  of  class  rushes,  hazing,  and 
the  like,  to  which  they  have  added  the  enforcement  of  a 
set  of  more  or  less  puerile  "  traditions  ";  whereas  the 
management  of  their  more  powerful  and  constructive 
interests  is  either  taken  entirely  out  of  their  hands,  as 
in  the  case  of  intercollegiate  athletics,  or  is  carried  on 
under  very  close  faculty  supervision. 

In  as  much  as  the  course  of  events  at  Wisconsin  has 
not  been  substantially  different  from  that  at  most  insti- 
tutions of  its  class,  that  course  may  be  presumed  to 
have  been  inherent  in  the  nature  of  the  elements  in- 
volved. It  is  a  trifle  paradoxical,  nevertheless,  that 
while  the  university  has  been  aspiring  and  advancing 
toward  higher  intellectual  levels,  it  has  been  at  the  same 
time  proceeding  toward  an  increasingly  elaborate  pater- 
nalism over  student  affairs.  We  are  forced  to  conclude 
that  the  magnitude  and  diversity  of  the  student  body 
have  increased  more  potently  than  the  maturity  and  re- 
sponsibleness  of  the  average  student.  Thus,  though  the 
formal  teaching  of  the  university  is  more  thoroughly  or- 


STUDENT  LIFE  325 

ganized  and  though  much  of  it  is  carried  to  a  far  higher 
level  than  formerly,  the  common  run  of  undergraduates 
have  far  less  scope  for  constructiveness  and  self-reliance 
in  the  activities  which  are  expressely  their  own  than  had 
their  predecessors  of  twenty-five  or  thirty  years  ago. 
Activities  are  managed  more  ably  by  mature  men,  of 
course;  but  they  are  managed  for  the  students,  not  by 
them.  This  begets  a  tameness  and  conformity  of  spirit 
which  robs  "  activities  "  of  half  their  virtue. 

The  student  interest  upon  which  the  faculty  laid  its 
hand  most  sternly  was  that  whose  abuses  were  propor- 
tionate to  the  excitement  it  inspired  amongst  students 
and  alumni,  namely,  intercollegiate  athletics.  There 
was  a  faculty  committee  on  athletics  from  1889  onward ; 
but  for  a  number  of  years  this  committee  had  little 
part  in  the  management  of  athletics  except  to  pass  upon 
the  scholastic  fitness  of  the  participants.  The  business 
affairs  connected  with  athletics,  the  management  of 
games,  the  handling  of  receipts,  the  election  of  managers 
for  the  several  sports,  the  hiring  of  coaches,  the  financing 
of  trips  and  training  table,  the  purchase  of  equipment, 
and  the  borrowing  of  money  which  these  operations  not 
infrequently  entailed,  were  all  in  the  hands  of  a  stu- 
dent board.  The  board  was  elected  by  an  athletic  as- 
sociation of  which  any  male  student  of  the  university 
could  become  a  member.  There  was  one  representative 
of  the  alumni  and  one  of  the  faculty  on  the  board,  also 
elected  by  the  student  mass-meeting  which  figured  as 
the  athletic  association.  Professors  Bashford  and  San- 
born of  the  Law  School  gave  valued  assistance  to  the  stu- 
dents in  this  connection  for  a  great  many  years.  After 
receipts  became  large,  as  a  result  of  the  growing  interest 
of  the  public  in  football,  during  the  mid-nineties,  the 
opportunities  for  the  abuse  of  funds  became  very  great 


326  WISCONSIN 

and,  beginning  in  1899,  the  board  employed  a  graduate 
manager.  But  even  this  did  not  prevent  questionable 
expenditures  and  frequent  financial  difficulties.  There 
were  other  bad  practices  connected  with  the  administra- 
tion of  the  training  table,  professionalism  and  a  closely 
allied  proselyting  for  players,  and  evasions  of  scholastic 
requirements. 

The  tendency  toward  closer  faculty  supervision  gained 
a  strong  impetus  in  January,  1895,  when  the  presidents 
of  seven  Mid- Western  universities — of  which  Wisconsin 
was  one — met  in  Chicago  for  the  purpose  of  considering 
the  regulation  of  intercollegiate  athletics.  This  meeting 
resulted  in  the  formation  of  the  Intercollegiate  Confer- 
ence of  Faculty  Representatives,  a  combination  from 
which  the  several  faculties  drew  support  in  the  struggle 
to  protect  athletics  against  the  frequently  misdirected 
enthusiasm  of  students,  alumni,  and  the  sporting  public. 
Complete  faculty  control  of  athletics,  together  with  most 
of  the  fundamental  rules  for  their  regulation  which  now 
obtain  among  the  universities  of  the  Western  Confer- 
ence, and,  as  a  result  of  this  influence,  in  numerous  other 
groups  of  institutions,  came  as  a  result  of  renewed  agita- 
tion exactly  a  decade  later.  Two  special  conferences, 
called  by  President  Angell  of  the  University  of  Michi- 
gan, met  in  Chicago  for  the  consideration  of  intercollegi- 
ate athletics  on  January  19  and  20  and  on  March  9, 
1906.  The  resolutions  passed  by  these  two  conferences 
were  approved  by  the  Intercollegiate  Conference  and  in- 
corporated in  its  rules  at  a  meeting  on  March  10. 
Among  these  were  the  rules  requiring  a  year  of  residence 
before  participating  in  athletics,  confining  participation 
to  three  years,  confining  participation  to  those  who  had 
not  taken  a  college  degree,  abolishing  the  training  table, 
forbidding  the  employment  of  professional  coaches  ex- 


STUDENT  LIFE  327 

cept  as  regular  members  of  the  faculty,  setting  fifty- 
cents  as  the  maximum  price  which  members  of  competing 
universities  might  be  charged  for  admission  to  games, 
and  taking  the  financial  control  of  athletics  out  of  the 
students'  hands. 

It  is  not  generally  known  that  the  initiative  for  this 
sweeping  programme  of  reform  came  from  Wisconsin. 
The  programme  itself  was  the  most  immediate  and  tan- 
gible result  of  an  energetic  "muckraking"  of  col- 
legiate athletics,  which  was  attracting  the  attention  of 
the  entire  country  about  this  time.  Inspired  by  the  Chi- 
cago alumni,  steps  had  recently  been  taken,  at  Wiscon- 
sin, to  improve  the  administration  of  athletics.  A  com- 
mittee composed  of  delegates  of  the  faculty,  alumni,  and 
students  had  met  the  preceding  spring  and  agreed  upon 
a  reorganization  of  the  athletic  board,  whereby  the 
faculty  and  alumni  members  were  increased  in  number 
and  were  elected  by  the  bodies  which  they  respectively 
represented ;  while  the  number  of  student  representatives 
was  reduced  and  a  limit  placed  on  the  proportion  of 
"  W  "  men  who  could  hold  positions  on  the  board.  The 
new  organization  had  but  a  brief  trial.  In  the  autumn 
of  1905,  the  revelation  of  certain  petty  but  disgraceful 
misdemeanors  on  the  part  of  the  football  management, 
together  with  unworthy  behavior  on  the  part  of  some 
members  of  the  team,  aroused  in  the  faculty  a  sense  of 
indignity  which  led  to  an  arraignment  of  the  whole  idea 
and  system  of  intercollegiate  athletics.  A  committee  of 
investigation  was  set  to  work,  and  it  was  at  the  request 
of  this  committee,  transmitted  through  President  Van 
Hise,  that  the  "  Angell  Conference  "  was  called.  The 
resulting  regulations,  far-reaching  though  they  have 
proved  to  be,  appeared  to  the  Wisconsin  faculty  in- 
sufficient for  the  exigencies  of  the  moment.     A  small, 


328  WISCONSIN 

"  root-and-branch  "  party  of  the  faculty  was  for  com- 
plete abolition  of  intercollegiate  contests.  A  much 
larger  party  favored  the  discontinuance,  at  least  tempo- 
rarily, of  competition  in  football.  Probably  the  latter 
policy  would  have  been  adopted  except  for  the  influ- 
ence of  President  Van  Hise  and  Dr.  Birge,  and  the  con- 
version of  Professor  Turner,  each  of  whom  held  the  view 
which  finally  prevailed,  namely,  that  intercollegiate  ath- 
letics were  worthy  of  preservation,  providing  that  their 
abuses  could  be  abated  and  their  function  subordinated 
to  more  important  features  of  collegiate  existence.  With 
the  latter  end  in  view,  the  number  of  football  games  for 
the  ensuing  year  was  limited  to  five,  and  "  big  games  " 
such  as  those  with  Chicago  and  Minnesota  were  ex- 
pressly prohibited.  Thus,  for  the  only  time,  in  a  quarter 
of  a  century  as  regards  the  first  and  in  nearly  thirty 
years  as  regards  the  second,  Wisconsin,  in  1906,  did  not 
meet  upon  the  football  field  either  Chicago  or  Min- 
nesota. 

This  little  blank  in  the  athletic  record,  trivial  in  itself, 
is  salient  in  that  it  marks  the  termination  of  an  era  in 
Wisconsin  feeling  and  tradition.  On  a  basis  of  abso- 
lute justice,  the  severity  of  the  faculty  was  thoroughly 
justified;  there  were  unwholesome  tendencies  in  the  old 
regime  which  needed  correction  and  deserved  rebuke. 
And  yet  it  is  doubtful  if  the  faculty  used  its  cooler  wis- 
dom in  adopting  measures  that  went  beyond  the  pro- 
gramme to  which  the  other  faculties  of  the  Conference 
had  agreed.  No  permanent  good  was  accomplished  by 
the  procedure ;  but  it  caused  students  and  alumni  to  be- 
lieve themselves  unsympathetically,  and  even  unfairly, 
treated  by  the  faculty,  and  to  resent  far  more  than  they 
otherwise  would  have  done  the  change  to  faculty  con- 
trol.    They  felt,  not  entirely  without  cause,  that  a  party 


STUDENT  LIFE  329 

in  the  faculty,  whose  strength  they  could  only  surmise, 
stood  ready  for  any  opportunity  to  nick  athletics  in 
the  heel.  Hence  they  believed  that  athletics  were  being 
administered  by  those  who  had  no  sincere  interest  in 
their  welfare.  The  athletic  leaders  supplied  by  the 
authorities  were  received  with  coldness  and  suspicion. 
The  old  glad  confident  Wisconsin  spirit  was  depreci- 
ated by  an  alloy  of  sullenness  and  sneering  criticism,  on 
the  part  of  too  many  students  and  alumni,  which  extend- 
ed to  other  matters  than  athletics.  This  could  not  pre- 
vent the  onward  sweep  of  the  university  in  numbers  and 
power;  but  it  introduced  an  element  of  discord  at  a 
time  when  this  very  growth  demanded  the  application 
of  every  positive  and  vital  force  if  the  university  was  to 
preserve  a  spirit  commensurate  with  its  bulk. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  extravagant  enthu- 
siasm lavished  upon  athletics  by  students  and  the  alumni 
implies  a  proportionate  over-estimate  of  their  intrinsic 
importance.  It  is  a  mistake  that  arises  from  a  puritanic 
failure  to  appreciate  the  significance  of  a  ritual.  That 
esprit  de  corps  amongst  the  undergraduates  and  gradu- 
ates of  a  school  that  we  call  "  college  spirit  "  requires  a 
rallying  point  or  occasion  for  demonstration.  Athletic 
contests  and  rivalries  are  convenient  and  pleasurable  oc- 
casions for  its  manifestation.  It  matters  little  whether 
that  spirit  be  associated  with  some  intra-collegiate  ac- 
tivity like  the  old  games  at  Rugby,  or,  as  has  become  tra- 
ditional here,  with  intercollegiate  rivalries.  What  mat- 
ters is  a  tradition  that  fuses  together  all  the  forces  of 
an  institution  in  enthusiastic  social  consent.  Such  a 
spirit  not  only  magnifies  the  power  of  an  institution  as 
a  whole ;  it  intensifies  the  generous  impulses  and  stimu- 
lates the  creative  energy  of  the  component  individuals 
and  hence  must  be  counted  one  of  the  precious  factors 


330  WISCONSIN 

in  the  educational  influence  of  the  institution  that  pos- 
sesses it. 

Such  a  spirit  Wisconsin  possessed  in  an  abounding 
measure  in  those  fateful  years  for  the  state  and  the  uni- 
versity which  led  up  to  the  celebration  of  her  Jubilee 
and  the  inauguration  of  President  Van  Hise.  Not  the 
least  was  it  of  the  creative  achievements  of  the  imme- 
diate past,  to  have  produced  an  individual  capable  of  the 
strong  leadership  which  was  to  guide  the  university 
onward  through  the  era  of  significant  expansion  and  in- 
novation that  was  at  hand.  The  choice  of  Van  Hise, 
the  first  graduate  of  the  institution  and  the  first  mem- 
ber of  its  faculty  to  be  elevated  to  the  presidency,  was 
the  culminating  mark  of  the  old  order,  as  it  was  the 
initial  event  of  the  new. 


XII 
UNDER  VAN  HISE 

After  considering  for  many  months  the  question  of 
a  successor  to  President.  Adams,  the  regents  of  the 
university,  on  April  21,  1903,  settled  upon  the  Profes- 
sor of  Geology,  Charles  R.  Van  Hise,  of  the  class  of 
1879.  As  has  just  been  suggested,  the  election  of  Van 
Hise  rounds  out  an  era  in  the  progress  of  the  university 
and  the  state.  Rarely  shall  we  find,  in  so  new  a  coun- 
try, the  case  of  a  man  who  has  risen  to  comparable 
eminence  in  science,  in  teaching,  and  in  administration, 
whose  relations  have  been  so  exclusively  with  his  own 
university,  as  were  those  of  Van  Hise  with  Wisconsin. 
So  far  as  he  was  the  product  of  forces  other  than 
inherent  qualities  and  those  influences  of  no  locality 
which  go  to  the  formation  of  any  man  who  masters  a 
subject  of  learning,  he  was  a  product  of  the  society 
and  the  institution  which  the  preceding  pages  have 
aimed  to  delineate.  He  never  attended  as  a  student  any 
other  university  and  he  was  never  attached  as  a  resi- 
dent to  any  other  faculty.  He  was  a  native  of  the 
state,  and  a  son  of  pioneers. 

Born  in  1857,  at  Fulton,  where  the  first  sod  in  Rock 
County  to  be  broken  by  the  white  man's  plow  had 
been  turned  exactly  twenty-two  years  before,  Van  Hise 
spent  among  frontier  surroundings — though  in  "Wiscon- 
sin's most  worldward  tier  of  counties — the  days  of  his 
boyhood.    In  the  Evansville  Academy,  a  few  miles  away, 

331 


332  WISCONSIN 

he  obtained  the  preliminary  education  which  admitted 
him  a  freshman  in  the  university  the  autumn  of  Bas- 
com's  first  year  at  Wisconsin.1  Thus  he  was  one  of 
the  earliest  group  of  Wisconsin  students  who  experi- 
enced the  force  of  Bascom's  teaching.  We  have  his 
testimony  to  the  unique  moral  power  and  the  durable- 
ness  of  that  influence.  At  the  beginning  of  the  junior 
year,  after  a  year's  absence  from  the  university,  he 
passed  from  the  General  Science  Course  into  the  spe- 
cialized course  in  Mining  and  Metallurgy  and  so  came 
into  the  magnetic  field  of  Irving,  being  the  sole  member 
of  his  class  in  that  department.  The  apt  pupil  soon 
became  the  collaborator,  and  upon  graduation,  a  col- 
league. 

Beginning  as  assistant  in  Mineralogy,  Van  Hise  rose 
rapidly  through  the  several  faculty  grades,  becoming 
at  the  end  of  four  years,  assistant  professor,  and  at  the 
end  of  six,  professor  of  Metallurgy.  In  1888,  he  was 
made  professor  of  Mineralogy,  and  in  1890  of  Archaean 
and  Applied  Geology.  The  establishment  of  a  power- 
ful department  of  Geology  at  Chicago  in  1892,  carried 
off  President  Chamberlin  and  Professor  Salisbury,  and 
Van  Hise  was  attached  to  the  University  of  Chicago 
as  non-resident  professor  of  Structural  Geology.  His 
connection  with  Wisconsin  comprehended  the  periods 
of  Bascom,  Chamberlin,  and  Adams;  so  he  came  to  the 
presidency  having  served  in  the  faculty  under  each  of 
these  in  turn.  As  a  colleague  of  Irving,  he  had  shared 
in  the  deepening  intellectual  tone  of  the  university  and 
had  contributed  to  the  notable  development  of  science 

1  The  date  at  which  Van  Hise  entered  the  university  is  cor- 
rectly given  in  Dr.  Birge's  memorial  address  (Memorial  Service 
in  honor  of  Charles  Richard  Van  Hise,  p.  7 )  ;  incorrectly,  in  the 
biographical  sketch  which  precedes  it.  Van  Hise  was  absent 
from  the  university  during  the  academic  year,  1876-77. 


UNDER  VAN  HISE  333 

teaching  which  marked  the  second  half  of  the  Bascom 
cycle.  He  had  seen  with  joy  the  encouragement  given 
to  applied  science  by  Chamberlin  and  welcomed  his 
friendship  to  research.  When,  in  1892,  the  university 
announced  itself  prepared  to  confer  the  degree  of  Ph.D., 
in  course,  he  had  been  the  first  to  embrace  the  oppor- 
tunity thus  offered.  While  the  creative  energies  of  the 
university  were  expanding  in  the  nineties,  his  own 
labors  as  an  investigator  were  bearing  large  fruits,  gain- 
ing him  wide  recognition  in  the  world  of  science  and 
among  practical  men  of  the  mining  industry.  He  was 
forty-six  years  of  age  when  elected  president  of  the 
university,  and  at  the  height  of  his  career  as  a  pro- 
ducing scientist. 

The  influence  of  President  Van  Hise  upon  the  uni- 
versity was  so  powerful  and  so  characteristic  that  he 
will  never  be  long  absent  from  the  pages  that  are  to 
follow;  but  it  may  be  well  to  precede  them  with  a  sug- 
gestion of  his  general  qualities  as  well  as  a  brief  record 
of  his  scientific  work  and  the  collateral  activities  of 
his  later  years,  after  which  the  notice  of  his  influence 
as  president  will  doubtless  merge  imperceptibly  with 
an  account  of  the  institution  under  his  guidance. 

The  first  two  words  that  rise  to  the  mind,  when  one 
thinks  of  describing  the  personal  qualities  of  President 
Van  Hise  are,  largeness  and  energy.  If  there 
were  a  third,  it  would  be,  definiteness.  It  is  not 
merely  that  these  qualities  were  perceptible  in  him; 
they  seemed  to  be  the  qualities  which  he  most  readily 
perceived  and  in  which  he  took  most  delight.  It  was 
often  jokingly  said  of  him  when  he  first  became  presi- 
dent, that  Geology  had  influenced  his  scale  of  thought 
so  that  he  could  only  think  of  the  progress  of  the  uni- 
versity in  units  of  fifty  years  and  of  students  in  tens 


334  WISCONSIN 

of  thousands.  Certainly  he  was  the  first  president  of  the 
university  to  make  large  forecasts  and  make  them  with 
confidence  and  precision.  In  nature  he  loved  the  vast 
elementary  spaces  and  masses  and  the  evidences  of 
natural  energy;  and  he  believed  implicitly  in  the  high 
barometer  as  a  coefficient  of  human  destiny.  In  human 
effort  he  was  more  impressed  by  magnitude  and  effi- 
ciency than  he  was  by  delicacy  or  perfection,  and  this 
showed  itself  after  he  became  president  in  his  rating 
of  men.  He  himself,  at  the  beginning  of  his  presi- 
dency, made  no  impression  so  strongly  as  that  of  huge 
force  sincerely  but  grotesquely  applied.  To  court 
humor  or  finesse  was,  for  him,  to  invite  a  mishap. 
This  was  due,  in  part,  to  his  defects  as  a  public  speaker, 
a  capacity  in  which  he  became  greatly  refined  through 
practice,  as  he  did  in  all  the  personal  arts.  He  had 
had  little  contact  with  society  or  literature.  He  knew 
the  woods  and  the  forge  better  than  the  platform  or 
the  smoking  room.  The  contacts  of  the  presidency  made 
him  far  more  a  man  of  the  world.  But  he  never  lost 
the  freshness  and  reality  of  one  who  had  threaded 
the  forests  of  northern  Wisconsin  and  Michigan  before 
they  were  laid  low  by  the  lumberjack.  He  had  been  a 
prodigious  strider  of  the  wilderness;  it  is  said  to  have 
been  no  holiday  jaunt  to  follow  him  from  sunrise  to 
sunset  when  he  was  in  the  field.  He  was  equally  ardu- 
ous at  the  lathe  and  microscope,  a  tireless  worker,  ac- 
customed to  undertake  large  tasks  and  see  them  through. 
That  record  of  large  work  well  done  was  a  buckler  of 
strength  to  the  president  of  a  university.  He  seldom 
referred  to  those  giant  quartos;  but  there  they  were — 
the  answer  to  many  a  quibble! 

In  summarizing  Van  Hise's  work  as  a  scientist,   I 
shall  help  myself  generously  to  the  statements  of  ex- 


UNDER  VAN  HISE  335 

President  Chamberlin,  who  has  spoken  with  unique 
authority,  both  because  of  his  technical  knowledge  of 
the  field  in  which  the  work  was  done  and  because  of 
intimate  familiarity  with  the  circumstances  involved. 
Van  Hise's  earliest  triumphs  as  a  mineralogist  were 
gained  through  successful  application  of  "the  new  art 
of  microscopic  petrology"  while  he  was  a  student  in 
the  laboratory  of  Irving.  Of  the  significance  of  these 
studies,  Chamberlin  speaks  as  follows: 

"The  new  art  had  begun  to  develop  somewhat  in  the 
Old  World  while  young  Van  Hise  was  yet  a  student, 
but  he  was  one  of  the  first  in  America  to  recognize  its 
epoch-making  power,  and  aid  in  its  development;  he 
was  quite  the  first  I  think  to  bring  its  resources  to 
bear  upon  the  study  of  the  crystalline  rocks  of  the 
interior.  The  new  departure  was  one  of  much  moment 
in  the  history  not  only  of  petrology  but  of  geology. 
Up  to  this  time  the  means  of  determining  the  precise 
nature  of  the  complex  rocks  formed  of  minutely  inter- 
mixed crystals  were  both  limited  and  untrustworthy. 
The  revelations  made  by  scrutiny  under  the  microscope 
by  the  aid  of  polarized  light  and  other  appliances 
formed  a  new  epoch  in  this  basal  science.  To  attempt 
to  employ  it  at  all  in  that  early  day,  when  its  difficulties 
were  so  little  known,  made  demands  on  the  courage  of 
the  young  men  who  ventured  to  try  it  and  called  for 
the  fullest  resources  of  their  training  in  the  basal 
sciences  involved." 

For  ten  years  Van  Hise  worked  jointly  with  Irving, 
at  first  upon  the  crystalline  rocks  of  the  "Wisconsin  Val- 
ley, but  later  and  chiefly  upon  the  iron-bearing  forma- 
tions of  the  Lake  Superior  region  of  "Wisconsin  and 
Michigan.  With  the  untimely  death  of  Irving,  in  1888, 
the  responsibility  for  their  joint  accumulations  fell  to 
Van  Hise  and  these  were  embodied  in  a  significant  mon- 


336  WISCONSIN 

ograph  on  the  Penokee  series,  completed  in  1890  and 
published  in  1892.  Five  years  later  a  companion  study 
of  the  Marquette  district  was  produced  by  Van  Hise 
working  in  collaboration  with  others.  These  volumes 
developed  ' '  the  important  doctrine  that  the  present  rich- 
ness of  the  iron  ores  is  due  in  part  to  the  purification 
of  the  original  ores  and  in  part  to  the  concentration  of 
the  iron  compounds  from  above  downwards,  both  proc- 
esses being  the  work  of  the  natural  circulation  of  the 
meteoric  waters."  The  working  out  of  this  theory  of 
ore  deposition  not  only  established  principles  which 
had  important  bearings  upon  the  practical  location  and 
evaluation  of  ore  deposits,  but  involved  corollaries  which 
were  noteworthy  contributions  to  structural  and  histori- 
cal geology.  "In  the  treatment  of  the  Basement  Com- 
plex, the  oldest  recognized  series  of  rocks,  the  very 
significant  fact  was  brought  out  that  the  schistose  mem- 
bers of  the  series  were  originally  surface  deposits,  largely 
of  volcanic  origin,  and  that  the  granitic  and  granitoidal 
masses  of  the  region  had  been  intruded  in  these  sur- 
face formations  and  hence  were  younger";  not,  as  had 
previously  been  supposed,  cooled  portions  of  the  molten 
globe.  Taken  in  conjunction  with  similar  determina- 
tions in  other  regions,  these  discoveries,  Dr.  Chamberlin 
declares,  "rob  the  doctrine  of  the  molten  earth  of  prac- 
tically all  field  evidence"  and  are,  therefore,  "a  con- 
tribution to  the  interpretation  of  an  earlier  part  of  earth 
history  of  the  first  order  of  importance." 

On  the  death  of  Irving  the  general  direction  of  the 
work  in  the  Lake  Superior  region  had  fallen  to  Van 
Hise's  charge  and  the  treatises  just  mentioned  were  fol- 
lowed by  four  similar  monographs  prepared  by  others 
under  his  supervision.  All  of  this  work,  occupying  six 
ponderous  volumes  comprising  over  3000  quarto  pages 


UNDER  VAN  HISE  337 

and  illustrated  by  multitudes  of  figures  and  maps,  was 
brought  to  completion  by  1904.  It  was  "a  monumental 
series  quite  unmatched  in  its  own  line,"  and  "placed 
Van  Hise  at  the  head  of  workers  on  the  iron-bearing 
series  of  the  Algonkian  or  Proterozoic  Ages."  While 
this  large  work  was  going  forward  his  more  immediate 
personal  studies  were  taking  a  broader  and  more  philo- 
sophic range,  leading  to  a  series  of  correlation  discus- 
sions of  the  oldest  known  formation  and  the  next  fol- 
lowing systems,  to  special  studies  upon  ore  deposition, 
and  above  all  to  A  Treatise  on  Metamorphism,  a  quarto 
of  1286  pages,  which  set  forth,  "in  a  masterly  way  and 
in  great  detail  the  leading  modes  by  which  the  natures 
of  rocks  are  changed  and  the  agencies  and  conditions 
that  take  part  in  these  changes."  This  huge  book 
was  passing  through  the  press  during  the  first  year 
of  his  presidency  and  had  every  appearance  of  a  valedic- 
tory. Nevertheless,  he  produced  seven  years  later,  in 
collaboration  with  C.  K.  Leith,  a  summary  work  on 
The  Geology  of  the  Lake  Superior  Region,  which  is  said 
to  be,  on  the  geological  side,  ' '  comparable  to  the  treatise 
on  metamorphism  on  the  physico-chemical  side." 

During  the  fifteen  years  from  his  entrance  on  the 
presidency  until  his  death,  November  19,  1918,  Van 
Hise's  energies  were  mainly  employed  in  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  university.  But  his  conception  and  exe- 
cution of  the  task  were  such  as  to  raise  in  his  mind 
the  problems  of  state  university  management  in  their 
broadest  aspects  and,  more  and  more,  his  attention  was 
attracted  to  the  complicated  questions  of  public  policy 
which  were  pressing  upon  the  state  and  the  nation. 
"With  respect  to  the  national  life,  his  administration 
was  coincident  with  the  animated  section  of  our  history 
which  extends  from  the  middle  of  Roosevelt's  first  term 


338  WISCONSIN 

to  the  close  of  the  world  war.  As  regards  state  affairs, 
the  earlier  years  of  his  administration  coincided  with 
the  triumph  of  the  so-called  "progressive"  movement 
in  Wisconsin.  It  was,  in  both  state  and  nation,  a  time 
of  eager  popular  awakening  to  distinctions  between 
the  development  and  the  exploitation  of  our  natural 
resources.  It  was  a  time  when  varied  programmes  were 
putting  forth  to  obtain  for  the  people  a  more  generous 
share  in  the  material  benefits  of  civilization  through  legal 
control  of  the  financial  and  industrial  organizations 
which  had  grown  within -a  decade  to  tyrannical  dimen- 
sions and  power,  and  through  readjustments  in  the  polit* 
ical  machinery  by  which  such  control  was  to  be  obtained 
and  held.  As  always  at  such  times  it  was  far  from 
easy  to  distinguish  between  the  policies  of  sound  state- 
craft and  the  reckless  experiments  of  the  popular  dema- 
gogue. Van  Hise  was  in  no  wise  a  politician.  His  utter- 
ances on  public  matters  were  always  remarkably  superior 
to  imputations  that  their  author  sought  political  promi- 
nence or  immediate  political  influence.  But  the  fiscal 
affairs  of  the  university  were  intimately  involved  with 
those  of  the  state.  The  duties  of  the  president  brought 
him  continually  in  contact  with  public  officials  and  with 
practical  problems  of  government.  Once  aroused,  he 
attacked  these  subjects  with  characteristic  vigor  and 
thoroughness.  By  his  writings  and  addresses  and  by 
his  service  on  important  commissions,  as  well  as  in  his 
conduct  of  the  university,  he  became  a  man  of  weight 
among  public  servants  of  the  type  to  which  Dr.  Albert 
Shaw  has  given,  with  special  reference  to  Van  Hise, 
the  title  "economic  statesman." 

The  economic  bent  declared  itself,  in  a  general  way,  in 
his  emphasis  from  the  start  upon  the  relation  of  the 
university  to  the  material  interests  of  the  state.    Specific 


Charles  R.  Van  Hise 

From  the  painting  by  Christian  Abrahamson 


UNDER  VAN  IIISE  339 

study  of  economic  conditions  is  first  indicated  in  con- 
nection with  a  matter  which  was  quite  simply  a  con- 
cern of  university  administration,  that  of  faculty  sala- 
ries. A  discussion  of  that  subject,  occupies  considerable 
space  in  his  Report  of  1908.  It  includes  an  examination 
of  the  trend  of  prices  during  the  preceding  decade  and 
a  forecast  of  the  future,  based  on  analysis  of  the  exist- 
ing financial  and  economic  situation.  Reference  is  made 
to  sources  of  information  which  are  not  ordinarily  con- 
sulted except  by  men  of  affairs  or  by  students  of  eco- 
nomics. Doubtless  it  was  rather  as  a  specialist  than  as 
a  publicist  in  the  broad  sense  that  he  was  included 
among  those  whom  President  Roosevelt  called  to  Wash- 
ington in  May,  1908,  for  the  conference  at  which  the 
Conservation  movement  was  launched.  But  Van  Hise 
took  up  the  cause  in  the  broadest  spirit  of  public  service, 
was  active  in  both  the  state  and  national  Conservation 
commissions,  .  gave  numerous  addresses,  including  a 
course  of  lectures  to  university  students,  and  embodied 
his  information  and  views  in  a  valuable  book  on  the 
subject. 

In  1912  appeared  his  most  ambitious  economic  study, 
a  volume  entitled,  Concentration  and  Control — a  Solu- 
tion of  the  Trust  Problem  in  the  United  States.  As 
indicative  of  his  broadening  interest  in  the  humanistic 
aspects  of  his  special  knowledge,  it  should  be  mentioned 
that  he  undertook,  in  his  later  years,  a  series  of  essays 
which  discuss  the  part  played  by  each  of  the  minerals 
in  the  history  of  civilization.  A  volume  treating  of 
the  economic  lessons  of  the  war  was  approaching  com- 
pletion at  the  time  of  his  death.  The  respect  for  his 
opinions  entertained  by  national  leaders  is  approved  by 
the  frequency  with  which,  during  the  last  years  of  his 
life,  he  served  on  boards  and  commissions  of  national 


340  WISCONSIN 

scope  and  by  the  influence  he  exerted  in  these  bodif 
Van  Hise's  theory  of  our  material  civilization  w 
marked  by  his  conclusion,  on  the  one  hand,  that  aggrv 
gations  of  capital  and  the  organization  of  industry  on 
a  huge  scale  are  essential  to  efficient  and  economical 
utilization  of  natural  resources  for  the  common  welfare ; 
on  the  other  hand,  it  determined  that  these  great  sources 
of  wealth  and  power  must  be  controlled  through  the 
medium  of  the  scientific  expert  and  in  a  humanitarian 
spirit  for  the  enrichment  and  uplifting  of  the  whole 
body  of  people.  There  were  those  who  were  at  first 
inclined  to  scoff  at  his  pretension  to  hold  influential 
views  upon  complicated  questions  of  economic  policy. 
And  indeed  his  qualification  for  this  role  was  not  at 
first  glance  self-evident.  He  had  not  been  trained  as 
a  professional  economist;  nor  was  he  a  practical  mining 
engineer  or  operator,  or  even,win  the  more  recent  sense, 
an  economic  geologist.  Yet,  though  in  his  special  field, 
his  tendency  had  been  toward  the  establishment  of  large 
and  comprehensive  principles,  these  principles  had  been 
established  through  the  orderly  array  of  vast  accumula- 
tions of  exact  and  even  minute  observations.  He  had 
long  maintained  that  the  future  advance  of  geological 
science  was  largely  dependent  upon  its  becoming  in 
greater  degree  a  quantitative  science.  His  own  findings 
had  proved  of  advantage  to  mining  experts  and  he  him- 
self was  anything  but  indifferent  to  the  practical  appli- 
cations of  scientific  knowledge.  What  he  did,  then,  bring 
to  the  support  of  economic  speculation  was  an  abun- 
dance of  exact,  first-hand  knowledge  of  our  mineral 
wealth  and  our  physical  geography,  together  with  a 
trained  capacity  for  the  accumulation  and  balancing 
of  large  masses  of  evidence.  He  brought,  also,  a  strong 
sense  for  the  economic  basis  of  social  action,  great  re- 


UNDER  VAN  HISE  341 

ieet  for  exact  knowledge  and  for  the  expert  in  what- 
rer  department  of  life,  and  an  inextinguishable  desire 
o  multiply  the  benefits  of  men. 

Van  Hise's  conceptions  as  a  geologist  and  a  conserva- 
tional  economist  pointed  and  concentrated  in  his  work 
as  an  educational  leader,  which  was  the  central  work 
of  his  life.  The  scientist  beheld  a  natural  world  inex- 
pressibly vast,  restless,  and  fertile ;  the  economist  per- 
ceived a  democratic  society  half-organized  and  only 
vaguely  conscious  of  the  untold  possibilities  of  coopera- 
tive action ;  the  educator  visioned  these  great  comple- 
mentary energies  responding  harmoniously  to  applica- 
tions of  trained  human  intelligence  and  will.  To  the 
teacher  who  had  seen  the  capacities  of  the  individual 
mind  unfold  with  the  opportunities  of  education,  the 
most  vital  form  of  conservation  to  which  the  social 
economy  could  be  directed  was  the  conservation  of  in- 
dividual capacity.  "The  greatest  waste  of  this  nation 
is  its  waste  of  talent,"  he  said.  "If  we  could  only 
fully  utilize  our  talent,  there  would  be  no  limit  to  our 
progress;  no  one  could  forecast  its  speed."  It  was  this 
apotheosis  of  progress  that  gave  to  his  enthusiasm  for 
the  university  its  almost  religious  fervor.  In  the  uni- 
versity he  saw  the  agency,  beyond  all  others,  through 
which  advancement  was  to  be  procured;  advancement, 
material  and  spiritual;  and  not  of  the  chosen  few 
merely,  but  of  the  whole  social  state. 

For  he  not  only  believed  in  the  university ;  he  trusted 
popular  government.  With  thirty  hostile  or  ill-advised 
bills  in  the  legislature,  he  remained  buoyant  but  active, 
convinced  that  good  sense  would  prevail  in  the  end, — 
as  it  usually  did.  Even  when  reverses  actually  came, 
he  was  undismayed,  confident  they  were  but  swirls  in 
the  onward  stream.     It  was  no  shallow  optimism  or 


342  WISCONSIN 

politician's  flattery  on  his  part,  but  settled  conviction. 
The  largeness  and  benevolence  of  his  purpose  justified 
him  in  boundless  ambition  for  the  university,  and  the 
solidity  of  his  convictions  sustained  him  in  a  leadership 
of  unhesitating  power  and  drive. 

"I  am  not  willing  to  admit  that  a  state  university 
under  a  democracy  shall  be  of  lower  grade  than  a  state 
university  under  a  monarchy."  This  sentence  from  his 
Inaugural  Address  exemplifies  the  rugged  baldness  with 
which  Van  Hise  sometimes  exposed  the  backbone  of  a 
question.  His  frequent  recurrence  to  the  same  form 
of  statement  indicates  that  he  deemed  it  a  pregnant 
condensation  of  the  thought  he  worked  in.  And  truly 
it  is  a  statement  which  bares  the  main  crux  of  our 
civilization.  The  quoted  words  contain  at  once  a  chal- 
lenge and  a  declaration  of  faith.  The  challenge  is  to  a 
democracy  on  trial,  since,  in  its  fitness  to  sustain  the 
highest  intellectual  strivings  of  mankind,  must  democ- 
racy abide  comparison  with  other  forms  of  society.  Men 
who  have  been  persuaded  to  concede  limitations  upon 
the  state  university,  as  compared  with  private  founda- 
tions or  with  the  superior  schools  of  monarchial  coun- 
tries, have  not  been  candid,  usually,  as  to  the  funda- 
mental distrust  of  democratic  institutions  implied  in 
the  admission.  Van  Hise  faced  the  implacable  issue 
squarely.  The  obscure  side- jump  made  by  those  who 
conceive  of  the  university  as  semi-distinct  from  the 
state,  as  if  it  were  by  some  miracle  imposed  from  with- 
out and  operating  aloof,  was  refused  by  the  logic  of 
his  mind.  The  university  was  incorporate  with  the 
state,  one  and  indivisible.  To  assure  continuance  of 
growth  it  must,  like  the  state  itself,  issue  out  of  the 
whole  being  of  the  people  and  give  allegiance  and  re- 
turn by  every  backward  line  of  radiation  through  which 


UNDER  VAN  HISE  343 

it  had  been  produced.  Immediate  hardships  or  in- 
conveniences resulting  from  this  relation  were  insignifi- 
cant in  comparison  with  the  illimitable  blessings  that 
would  attend  the  realization  of  its  possibilities.  All 
hope  of  permanent  progress  for  our  society  was  bound 
up  with  faith  in  democracy. 

This  faith,  Van  Hise  never  surrendered ;  but  he  came 
to  hold  and  apply  it  more  warily.  He  felt  from  the 
first,  but  felt  more  keenly  as  he  gained  experimental 
knowledge,  that,  in  a  society  steadily  moving  toward 
more  direct  validations  of  the  popular  will,  the  univer- 
sity would  have  to  exert  stress — and  this  in  no  casual 
manner  or  degree — to  justify  itself  to  the  mass  of  people. 
There  was  nothing  specifically  new  in  the  conception 
as  Van  Hise  held  it  at  first.  The  emphasis  upon  the 
interrelation  of  university  and  state  was  a  direct  inheri- 
tance from  Adams.  But  Van  Hise  infused  the  idea  with 
a  new  potency  and  embodied  it  in  a  practical  programme 
so  large,  so  representative  of  his  own  trend  of  mind, 
and  so  effectual,  that  it  became  the  basic  principle  of 
his  leadership. 

The  first  step — but  only  the  first  it  should  be  noticed 
— was  to  convince  the  people  of  the  state  that  the  uni- 
versity was  "a,  good  business  investment  "  by  proving 
that  it  returned  directly  to  the  state,  in  economic  bene- 
fits, more  than  was  expended  upon  it,  that  it  "showed 
a  profit,"  as  business  men  would  say.  It  followed  that 
all  the  less  tangible  benefits  conferred  by  an  institution 
of  learning,  those  which  were  traditionally  associated 
with  higher  education,  really  cost  the  state  nothing,  that 
these — again  in  the  language  of  the  street — "represented 
velvet."  And  this  line  of  argument  was  peculiarly 
directed  to  justification  of  that  branch  of  university 
effort  for  which,  supposedly,  it  would  be  most  difficult 


344  WISCONSIN 

to  maintain  popular  support,  and  in  which,  as  I  be- 
lieve, the  president  was  most  passionately  interested, — 
of  research.  In  any  large  scheme  of  things,  it  was 
shown,  the  state  must  support  investigation,  because 
all  advance  in  the  arts,  whether  of  industry  or  social 
control,  is  preceded  by  discovery.  No  matter  how  re- 
mote from  the  practical  interests  of  society  the  explora- 
tions of  pure  learning  may  appear  to  be,  one  never  can 
tell  when  they  may  strike  paying  ore. 

In  promulgating  this  doctrine  and  in  organizing 
itself  to  make  good  the  promises  based  upon  it,  Wis- 
consin passed  through  no  little  internal  commotion,  while 
it  became  to  the  outside  world  somewhat  a  portent  among 
universities.  The  new  accent,  at  once  materialistic  and 
pious,  appealed  to  the  Rooseveltian  temper  of  the  hour. 
Whatever,  just  then,  promised  novelty  and  progress  in 
social  organization  was  assured  of  a  ready  publicity, 
and  Wisconsin  attracted  attention  on  a  scale  quite  out 
of  proportion  to  the  economic  importance  of  the  state 
or  to  the  material  progress  of  the  university,  striking  as 
that  progress  was.  By  some,  both  within  and  without, 
it  was  acclaimed  a  new  power  of  light  and  leading. 
To  others,  it  appeared  in  the  forefront  of  the  powers 
of  educational  darkness.  Both  views  invite  some  cor- 
rection. 

Certainly,  whoever  has  seen  in  the  Wisconsin  of  Van 
Hise  only  an  extraordinary  development  of  "university 
extension"  and  direct  utilitarian  "service  to  the  state" 
has  not  taken  account  of  its  full  development  and  has 
failed  to  comprehend  the  scope  of  its  intention.  It  is 
not  impugning  the  sincerity  in  which  President  Van 
Hise,  and  the  university  under  his  guidance,  wrought  for 
the  common  weal  on  the  plane  of  the  instant  needs  of 
men,  to  recognize  that  that  activity  was  not  a  sole  end 


UNDER  VAN  HISE  345 

in  itself,  but  was  part  of  a  far-seeing  plan  whereby 
the  university  built  for  security  in  its  own  proper 
sphere.  For,  in  so  far  as  it  succeeds  in  enlightening 
the  people  on  whom  it  relies  for  support  to  such  a  point 
that  they  will  approve  and  sustain  its  ever  mounting 
intellectual  ambitions,  the  university  precisely  dis- 
charges its  unique  "service  to  the  commonwealth,"  that 
of  effective  intellectual  leadership.  It  is  clear,  then,  that 
in  the  gross  and  scope  of  its  intention  the  Van  Hise  out- 
look was  beneficent  and  sound.  There  are,  nevertheless, 
matters  of  particular  and  temporary  emphasis  concern- 
ing which  there  are  doubts  to  be  assuaged. 

To  indicate  what  emphasis  is  meant  and  to  explain 
the  doubts  which  arise  from  it,  without  the  risk  of 
conveying  a  false  impression  to  those  who  have  no 
exact  idea  of  the  activities  of  the  university  is  a  matter 
of  some  delicacy.  It  may  in  a  measure  forestall  mis- 
conceptions if  we  have  before  us  a  brief  but  definite  de- 
scription of  the  activities  of  the  university  during  the 
period  under  consideration.  For  this  purpose,  I  know 
nothing  better  than  a  selection  of  facts  recently  com- 
piled by  Dr.  Birge,  and  his  commentary  thereupon. 
The  material  progress  of  the  university  from  1903  to 
1918,  he  illustrates  as  follows: 

"The  landed  property  of  the  University  was  doubled 
in  area.  Nearly  $3,000,000  were  added  to  permanent 
property  in  new  buildings  and  their  equipment.  The 
income  of  the  University  was  placed  on  a  solid  basis  by 
the  reinstatement  of  the  mill  tax.  The  total  income  was 
quadrupled  in  amount,  and  the  appropriation  for  opera- 
tion from  the  state  increased  nearly  fivefold,  from  $427,- 
000  in  1903  to  $1,600,000  in  1918.  Large  additions  were 
made  to  the  teaching  force.  Old  departments  were  en- 
larged and  strengthened ;  new  departments  were  added ; 
the  medical  school  and  the  extension  division  were  es- 


346  WISCONSIN 

tablished.  The  faculty  numbered  184  in  1902-3  and  751 
in  1916-17.  The  students  of  the  regular  college  year 
doubled  in  number  during  the  same  period;  and  nearly 
trebled,  if  short  course  and  summer  session  are  included. 
First  degrees  rose  from  358  in  1903  to  a  maximum  of 
830  in  1917 ;  and  in  the  same  period  higher  degrees  rose 
from  29  to  179.  During  the  fifty  years  preceding  the 
Jubilee  of  1904,  the  University  granted  almost  exactly 
5,000  (5,080)  first  degrees  and  219  higher  degrees  on 
examination.  In  the  following  fifteen  years,  over  8,700 
first  degrees  were  granted  and  about  2,100  higher  de- 
grees. The  signature  of  President  Van  Hise  appears 
on  two-thirds  of  all  diplomas  issued  by  the  University 
since  its  foundation  and  on  nine-tenths  of  diplomas  for 
higher  degrees  awarded  in  course." 

Here  is,  indeed,  as  Dr.  Birge  says,  ' '  a  noteworthy  rec- 
ord of  rapid  progress."  The  mass  and  power  of  the 
university  in  this  period  in  comparison  with  its  whole 
previous  mass  and  power  is  overwhelmingly  brought 
home,  as  well  as  the  velocity  of  its  movement.  Is  it 
strange  that  we  should  pause  to  inquire  as  to  the  quality 
of  this  mass;  as  to  the  manner  in  which  this  power  has 
been  applied;  as  to  the  direction  of  this  extraordinary 
movement?    Dr.  Birge  comments  as  follows: 

"It  has  not  been  an  advance  concentrated  in  certain 
directions,  least  of  all  one  dominated  by  considerations 
of  utility  or  immediate  vocational  service  to  the  com- 
munity. That  this  great  side  of  the  work  of  a  state 
university  has  not  been  neglected  is  sufficiently  wit- 
nessed by  the  development  of  the  College  of  Agriculture 
and  of  the  Extension  Department.  That  the  needs  of 
research  and  of  the  most  advanced  teaching  have  been 
equally  protected  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  the  number 
of  doctor's  degrees  granted  during  President  Van  Hise's 
term  averaged  21  annually,  as  compared  with  an  average 
of  less  than  one-fourth  that  number  in  the  preceding 
twelve  years.    The  number  of  these  degrees  during  the 


UNDER  VAN  HISE  347 

last  half  of  his  term  was  twice  as  great  as  that  of  the 
first  half.  There  was  a  steady  and  constant  advance 
of  the  University  in  all  its  departments,  interrupted  only 
by  recent  changes  due  to  the  war.  .  .  .  It  is  a  progress 
necessarily  stated  here  in  terms  of  statistics,  though 
its  story  is  not  told  by  the  statistics.  For  behind  them 
lies  a  record  of  departments  strengthened  as  well  as 
enlarged,  of  teaching  raised  in  character  as  well  as 
increased  in  quantity ;  a  record  of  the  development  into 
fact  of  the  university  spirit  and  of  university  method. ' ' 

We  may  recognize  in  this,  without  offense,  the  official 
interpretation  of  the  facts.  It  is  carefully  phrased ;  what 
is  said  is  of  course  true  and,  as  far  as  it  goes,  adequate. 
And  yet  the  point  remains  that  doubts  have  existed 
in  regard  to  the  general  spirit  of  the  university  in  this 
era  which  are  not  altogether  quieted  by  the  statement 
that  its  movement  "has  not  been  an  advance  concen- 
trated in  certain  directions,"  nor  by  proof  of  the  su- 
perior plane  of  intellectual  difficulty  upon  which  much 
of  the  work  of  the  university  has  been  done.  There 
is  something  which  is  not  touched  even  by  the  denial 
that  the  advance  of  the  university  has  been  ' '  dominated 
by  considerations  of  utility,"  a  statement  which  is  true, 
in  that  one  would  not  care  to  make  the  opposite  one 
in  the  same  sweeping  form.  It  is  the  elusive  question 
of  the  prevailing  temper  of  the  university  concerning 
which  something  must  be  said.  Let  us  return  to  "service 
to  the  state." 

The  phrase,  ' '  service  to  the  commonwealth, ' '  from  the 
time  it  was  displayed  on  the  medal  struck  for  the  Jubilee 
of  the  university  became  the  rallying-cry  of  President 
Van  Hise's  administration.  Around  the  implications 
of  this  phrase  wage  all  controversies  as  to  the  excel- 
lence of  his  regime.  In  the  fullness  of  its  conception, 
when  presented  at  its  best  by  President  Van  Hise,  it 


348  WISCONSIN 

came  as  near  providing  a  religious  principle  of  action 
as  any  motto  our  modern  democracy  seems  likely  to 
find.  The  work  and  influence  of  Van  Hise  went  far 
toward  making  it  an  effective  principle  in  the  life  of 
the  university.  But,  like  all  terms  possessing  a  moral 
content,  the  term  service  is  capable  of  a  variety  of 
connotations  according  to  the  spirit  of  its  use.  And 
especially  is  it  capable  of  a  higher  and  of  a  lower 
meaning.  It  is  capable  of  a  liberal  and  idealistic  in- 
terpretation and  it  is  capable  of  a  mundane  and  degen- 
erate interpretation.  And  too  often  the  word  has  been 
conjured  with  in  the  lower  sense.  Wisconsin  is  far 
from  having  been  the  least  restrained  of  western  state 
institutions  in  immediacy  of  appeal  and  extremity  of 
condescension  to  the  velleities  of  the  hour  and  of  the 
unillumined.  But  at  times  the  idea  of  service  has  been 
applied  to  the  glorification  of  materialistic  pursuits  with 
such  an  emphasis  as  to  imply  that  there  is  something 
amateurish  and  self-indulgent  about  the  distinterested 
pursuit  of  knowledge  or  of  culture.  On  the  part  of 
President  Van  Hise  this  emphasis  was  due  in  a  measure 
to  a  desire  to  fortify  the  position  that  the  university  is 
an  economic  asset  of  the  state.  But  it  was  natural  in 
one  whose  professional  progress  had  been  a  part  of  the 
triumphant  march  which  gained,  first  for  science,  and 
then  for  applied  science,  a  place  in  the  sun.  It  was  a 
natural  outcome,  too,  of  his  innate  sympathy  with  defi- 
nite results  and  with  benefits  that  could  be  measured 
and  weighed.  But  one's  passion  for  service  to  his  fellow 
man  may  run  toward  presenting  him  with  some  just 
impression  of  a  value  in  art  or  morals  or  an  elusive 
concept  of  gravitation,  rather  than  toward  providing 
him  with  cheaper  electricity  or  subtilizing  his  philosophy 
of  municipal  sewage.     It  is  hard  to  see  that  the  spirit 


UNDER  VAN  HISE  349 

of  service  appears  in  one  process  less  than  in  the  other. 
Nor  is  it  easy  to  deprive  oneself  of  the  prejudice  that 
the  former  set  of  functions  is  higher  than  the  latter. 
In  each  case,  there  is  the  gift  of  a  possession  of  knowl- 
edge ;  but  one  set  of  possessions  is  higher  and  the  other 
is  lower.  The  lower  may  be  necessary  and  useful,  and 
they  are;  we  may  even  have  to  admit  that  they  are 
all  we  can  attend  to  for  the  moment.  But  we  do  wrong 
grievously,  if,  to  improve  the  countenance  of  an  utili- 
tarian emphasis,  we  equivocate  these  values  by  an  unfair 
diffusion  of  the  idea  of  service. 

The  argument  that  the  university  is  "a  good  business 
investment"  is  not  in  itself  unsound;  nor  was  there  any- 
thing improper  in  presenting  it  for  what  it  was  worth; 
there  was  some  loss  to  the  university,  however,  in  the 
extraordinary  emphasis  with  which  it  was  given  prom- 
inence at  the  expense  of  other  claims  to  consideration 
which  it  is  more  vital  for  a  university  to  have  pre- 
sented and  to  have  emphasized.  There  was  no  pro- 
nouncement of  the  period  that  President  Van  Hise  was 
more  fond  of  repeating  in  later  years  than  that  of  James 
Bryce,  delivered  at  the  inauguration  of  President  Lowell 
of  Harvard,  that  "a  university  should  reflect  the  spirit 
of  the  times  without  yielding  to  it. ' '  It  will  be  seen  that 
the  issue  here  must  inevitably  be  one  of  degree,  of 
emphasis;  and  the  question  very  naturally  arises, 
whether  Wisconsin  was  not  quite  distinctly  yielding  to 
the  spirit  of  our  times  in  challenging  the  attention  of 
the  people  so  forcibly  upon  the  plane  of  their  material 
interests  and  "selfish  solicitudes."  It  may  well  be  in- 
quired how  far  so  flattering  a  reflection  of  the  spirit  of 
the  times  is  harmonious  with  the  high  spirit  of  intellec- 
tual leadership  which  we  have  a  right  to  expect  in  a 
university.    It  may  be  questioned  whether  an  institution 


350  WISCONSIN 

of  highest  learning  is  not  going  the  wrong  way  about, 
when  it  encourages  its  constituency  to  think  of  its  gains 
in  disinterested  science  and  liberal  culture  as  "repre- 
senting velvet,"  lending  comfort  thereby  to  the  vulgar 
disposition — always  sufficiently  pronounced — to  regard 
all  the  finer  things  of  the  mind  with  amiable  tolerance, 
so  long  as  they  cost  nothing.  Too  much  is  being  made 
of  this  point,  but  there  is  a  related  one  of  which  too 
much  can  hardly  be  made. 

From  the  notion  that  these  gains  can  be  had  without 
economic  cost,  it  is  a  short  step  to  the  notion  that  they 
can  be  had  without  educational  cost.  The  step,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  has  been  taken  by  those — and  Van  Hise 
was  one — who  have  championed  applied  subjects  and 
vocational  courses  as  factors  in  a  liberal  education.  This 
is  to  maintain  that  the  fruits  of  a  liberal  education  can 
be  had  without  specific  appropriations  of  years  of  life, 
and  without  specially  directed  intellectual  effort;  that 
culture  may  be  acquired  incidentally.  But  those  who 
really  understand  culture  and  who  really  care  about  it 
know  that  it  cannot  be  obtained  so  cheaply.  They  know 
that  it  cannot  be  obtained  without  an  effort  quite  as 
definite  and  quite  as  devoted  as  that  required  for  a 
mastery  of  the  useful  arts.  And  so  the  final  problem 
confronts  us:  How  far  is  it  the  duty  of  a  university 
to  stand  by  that  knowledge,  even  at  considerable  sac- 
rifice of  popularity  and  practical  usefulness,  in  order 
that  it  may  fulfill  in  a  higher  sense,  its  unique  function 
as  "an  instrument  of  the  state"?  Once  more,  the  issue 
is  one  of  degree.  When  we  are  told  that  the  university 
has  not  been  "dominated  by  considerations  of  utility" 
we  can  neither  truthfully  nor  politely  reply  by  the 
opposite  assertion;  but  we  can  inquire  how  far  it  has 
been  influenced  by  such  considerations.    And  if  we  are 


UNDER  VAN  HISE  351 

told,  and  truthfully  told,  that  a  university  has  resisted 
the  materialistic  demands  of  the  hour,  we  can  ask 
whether  it  has  resisted  them  sufficiently.  "We  can  ask 
where  its  weight  has  been  thrown. 

The  foregoing  reservations  are  not  intended  to  dis- 
parage the  splendid  service  which  the  university  has 
actually  rendered  to  the  state  in  recent  years.  Nor  do 
they  mean  that  "Wisconsin  has  been  less  faithful  to  the 
appropriate  ideals  of  a  university  than  other  institutions 
of  its  class  in  this  country.  The  reputation  for  "utili- 
tarianism" which  became  attached  to  "Wisconsin  some 
years  ago  is  to  be  attributed,  in  part,  to  a  slight  prece- 
dence in  point  of  development  over  similar  institutions, 
and  partly  to  certain  features  of  novelty  and  accidents 
of  publicity  that  had  little  to  do  with  the  main  mass 
of  the  central  work  of  the  university.  In  order  to 
appreciate  how  little  deserved  this  reputation  wa3,  one 
needs  only  to  know  how  extremely  distasteful  it  was  to 
a  considerable  body  of  the  faculty,  as  was,  also,  the 
excited  emphasis  of  the  administration  upon  the  prac- 
tical achievements  of  the  institution  and  upon  the  no- 
tice it  was  attracting  abroad.  These  objections,  there- 
fore, serve  to  represent  in  a  measure  that  body  of  con- 
servative sentiment  and  more  sensitive  taste.  They  give 
an  indication,  moreover,  of  the  determined  opposition 
against  which  some  features  of  the  new  programme  had 
to  be  carried, — carried  only,  at  times,  by  bringing  into 
play  the  full  pressure  of  administrative  prestige  sup- 
ported by  dark  allusions  to  Demos  in  the  background. 
They  do  not  prove,  granting  them  every  validity  except 
that  of  final  weight,  that  Van  Hise  had  not  the  bigger 
grasp  of  the  main  situation.  "We  cannot  tell  without 
a  larger  perspective  than  is  yet  possible — if  Ave  can 
ever  tell — whether  the  university  would  have  done  better 


352  WISCONSIN 

to  apply  its  strength  in  a  slightly  different  direction, 
or  whether  Van  Hise  was  essentially  right  in  believing 
that  it  must  build  for  the  immediate  welfare  of  the 
state  at  large  and  for  its  own  strength  and  security 
as  a  popular  institution,  and — however  regrettable  the 
fact — that  the  finer  flowering  of  our  democratic  civiliza- 
tion must  await  the  coming  of  the  golden  year. 

The  president  was  not  one,  himself,  for  delicate  re- 
grets. He  could  not  have  done  what  he  did  if  he  had 
not  thoroughly  believed  in  what  he  was  doing,  and  he 
could  not  have  believed  in  it  so  thoroughly  without  a 
certain  actualism  of  temper.  It  would  be  most  unfair 
to  imply  that  the  less  tangible  responsibilities  of  a  uni- 
versity which  have  been  glanced  at  were  omitted  from 
his  scheme  of  development  for  the  institution  and  the 
state  or  that  efforts  to  meet  these  were  without  recog- 
nition or  encouragement  when  they  chanced  to  put  in 
an  appearance.  They  were  not ;  but  it  usually  happened 
that  other  parts  of  the  scheme  were  more  urgent  to  be 
realized.  For  instance,  a  department  of  Fine  Arts  had 
a  weakly  birth  and  an  early  death  on  the  rocks.  Allow- 
ance must  be  made  of  course  for  the  fact  that  an 
administrator  may  be  no  opportunist  and  yet  be  con- 
strained to  a  certain  degree  of  opportunism.  He  does 
what  he  would  do  as  far  as  he  can  and  what  he  can  do 
as  far  as  he  will.  The  unfulfilled  dream  of  halls  of  resi- 
dence for  men  and  the  substantial  realization  of  uni- 
versity extension  are  cases  in  point.  In  the  main,  how- 
ever, President  Van  Hise  carried  out  what  his  heart 
was  set  upon;  development  was  powerful  in  ranges 
where  his  perceptions  were  most  acute.  His  work  was 
rugged  and  constructive,  befitting  a  pioneer. 

As  the  university  expanded,  it  not  only  became  larger ; 
it  became  of  necessity  more  vigorously  organized.    And, 


UNDER  VAN  HISE  353 

as  must  happen  in  powerful  organizations  and  in  times 
of  sweeping  change,  men  of  sensitive  talent  and  fas- 
tidious temper  were  subordinated,  seeming  inert  or  re- 
actionary. It  is  not  meant  that  such  talent  was  unfairly- 
treated  by  the  administration,  but  that  the  whole  en- 
vironment and  competition  were  inimical  to  its  pros- 
perity and  distorted  its  application.  More  and  more, 
experts  and  organizers  predominated  in  the  faculty. 
Van  Hise  liked  men  about  him  who  got  things  done. 
And,  anyway,  the  university  was  in  a  stage  of  advance- 
ment when  men  were  bound  to  assume  importance  for 
their  business  character  as  well  as  for  their  qualities 
as  scholars  and  gentlemen.  The  intellectual  activities 
of  the  university  became  broader;  those  of  individuals 
narrower  and  more  expert.  This  was  true,  alike,  of 
faculty  and  students.  The  ambition  and  the  oppor- 
tunities to  advance  knowledge  were  immensely  in- 
creased. The  ideal  of  efficiency  was  promoted;  men 
acquired  the  disposition  to  do  things  right  and  to  do 
them  well.  Contacts  with  public  affairs  increased,  and 
the  sense  of  public  duty  was  stimulated.  The  idea  of 
service  became  a  vital  principle, — sometimes  rawly  ex- 
pressed, but  wholesomely  applied.  This  was  fortunate, 
for  it  introduced  some  cohesion  in  an  institution  which, 
socially,  was  becoming  enormously  heterogeneous  and 
in  danger  of  substituting  organization  for  a  heart  and 
soul.  The  general  temper  was  that  of  a  rough-and- 
ready,  good-natured,  rather  materialistic,  somewhat  os- 
tentatious, humanitarianism.  It  was  nevertheless  a 
genuinely  kindly  spirit  of  serviceableness  which  per- 
meated most  of  the  departments  of  the  university  and 
declared  itself  in  helpfulness  toward  the  public  and 
in  generous  cooperation  between  departments.  This  last 
characteristic  has  been  of  superlative  importance  to  the 


354  WISCONSIN 

university.  Only  a  sincere  spirit  of  helpfulness  could 
have  vitalized  the  idea  of  " service  to  the  state"  from  a 
cold-blooded  "business  proposition"  to  a  principle  of 
some  warmth  and  imagination.  And  only  through  cor- 
dial relations  between  departments  could  the  university 
have  harvested  the  scientific  advantages  which  Mr. 
Abraham  Flexner  doubtless  had  in  mind  when  he  re- 
ferred to  Wisconsin  as  "fortunate  beyond  almost  all 
other  states  in  the  concentration  of  its  higher  institu- 
tions of  learning. ' ' 1  With  respect  to  the  student  com- 
munity, it  should  be  stated  that,  in  spite  of  considerable 
increase  of  wealth  in  some  quarters,  there  prevailed  a 
wholesome  democratic  feeling  between  students  of  all 
classes  and  it  should  be  further  added  that  there  was 
the  best  of  good  will  between  the  men  and  the  women 
of  the  institution. 

There  was  enough  in  all  this  to  warrant  pride  in 
Wisconsin  on  the  part  of  her  sons  and  daughters  and 
attach  them  to  her  in  loyalty  and  love.  If  we  fail  to 
find  in  the  Wisconsin  of  Van  Hise  any  pervasive  pres- 
ence of  the  spiritual  refinement  and  the  grace  of  life 
which  we  crave  for  our  ideal  of  the  "greatest"  uni- 
versity, we  can  at  least  account  for  the  fact  by  the 
explanation  that  these  things  did  not,  perhaps  could  not, 
belong  to  that  cycle  of  development.  It  was  only  her 
more  crass  journalistic  admirers  who  grieved  the  judi- 
cious by  referring  to  Wisconsin  as  "the  greatest  uni- 
versity in  the  world."  The  president  relished  foreign 
eulogies  and  gave  them  currency  not  because  he  cared 
for  applause,  even  for  the  university,  or  thought  it  had 
reached  perfection,  but  because,  in  words  used  by  Bas- 
com  a  generation  earlier,  "honor  abroad  enhances  the 
estimate  in  which  a  university  is  held  at  home."    Speak- 

1  Report  of  the  Carnegie  Foundation,  1910. 


UNDER  VAN  HISE  355 

ing  for  the  university  at  large,  it  had  learned  that  it 
was  important,  but  had  not  yet  forgotten  the  fact. 

It  should  be  said  in  review  that  perhaps  the  cen- 
tralizing of  the  foregoing  discussion  about  the  president 
tends  too  much  to  leave  an  impression  that  the  develop- 
ment and  temper  of  the  university  in  this  period  reflect 
the  influence  of  one  man.  It  was  not  quite  so ;  although 
the  initiative  and  dominance  of  the  president  were  pro- 
nounced. Rather  it  was  as  the  accepted  leader  of  a 
party  in  the  faculty  and  in  the  board  of  regents  which 
— not  in  a  political  but  in  a  moral  sense — derived 
strength  from  the  dominant  disposition  of  the  state,  that 
President  Van  Hise  shaped  the  course  of  the  university. 
The  course  chosen  gave  sheer  advantage  of  wind  and 
water;  the  progress  and  prosperity  were  great. 

An  outline  of  the  total  development  of  the  institution 
in  numbers,  material  resources,  and  intellectual  pitch 
is  already  before  us  in  the  synopsis  by  Dr.  Birge  which 
has  been  quoted.1  Supplementing  this  information,  the 
chart  reproduced  on  an  adjacent  page  portrays  in 
graphic  lines  the  growth  of  attendance  and  the  increase 
in  the  financial  resources  of  the  university  from  the 
beginning  of  Bascom's  administration  until  the  present 
time.  During  the  period  represented,  the  university 
has  experienced  no  long  or  serious  check  to  its  progress 
in  these  respects,  though  it  has  not  advanced  at  a  uni- 
form rate,  as  a  glance  at  the  chart  will  show.  The 
tracings  run  comparatively  level  through  the  Bascom 
period,  then  comes  a  gradual  rise  to  1903,  after  which 
the  ascent  becomes  increasingly  precipitous  almost  to 
the  apex  in  1916-17.    Here  the  enrollment  line  suddenly 

1  Above,  p.  345.  An  analysis  of  attendance  for  the  entire  period 
and  detailed  information  in  regard  to  the  buildings  of  the  uni- 
versity will  be  found,  in  tabulated  form,  in  the  Appendix. 


356  WISCONSIN 

jags  downward,  for  reasons  that  are  obvious.  If  the 
sudden  recovery  after  the  war  were  shown  this  line 
would  rise  almost  perpendicularly  to  a  point  far  above 
any  preceding  height,  and  yet  to  about  the  point  that 
would  have  been  reached  by  the  normal  attendance  curve 
had  there  been  no  extra-normal  interruption.  The 
sharpest  uniform  rise  through  a  series  of  years  is  that 
from  1908  to  1914,  and  this  definition  of  a  middle  sec- 
tion of  the  Van  Hise  period  parts  it  into  three  nearly 
equal  divisions  which  correspond  to  significant  aspects 
of  the  development  of  the  institution.  Many  factors 
enter  into  the  growth  here  indicated;  but  they  may  be 
simplified  to  three:  increase  of  patronage  within  the 
state  and  from  abroad  as  a  result  of  the  widening  rep- 
utation of  the  university;  enlargement  of  the  material 
facilities  and  instructional  force,  made  possible  by  the 
response  of  the  state  to  the  needs  thus  indicated;  ex- 
pansion and  advance  of  the  university  into  added  fields, 
with  a  consequent  further  increase  of  patronage  in  re- 
sponse to  the  new  opportunities  provided.  There  was, 
of  course,  a  constant  reciprocity  of  action  amongst  these 
several  factors. 

"If  we  wish  numbers  we  may  well  do  something  by 
wise  advertisement  to  secure  a  larger  attendance  from 
neighboring  states.  There  is  no  institution  of  equal 
power  so  little  known  beyond  the  borders  of  its  own 
state  as  the  University  of  Wisconsin."  Thus  Bascom 
wrote  in  1884.  There  had  been  a  gradual  change  in 
this  respect  in  twenty  years;  but  partly  through  un- 
invited circumstances  and  partly  through  direct  policy, 
a  decided  impulse  was  given  to  advertisement  of  the 
institution  at  the  beginning  of  the  Van  Hise  period.  A 
Press  Bulletin  was  at  once  established  for  the  purpose 
of  supplying  the  newspapers  of  the  state  and  beyond 


UNDER  VAN  HISE  357 

it  with  correct  information  concerning  the  university, 
in  advantageous  form.  One  of  the  motives  for  organiz- 
ing the  Jubilee  was,  so  the  president  reported,  "to 
strengthen  the  University  in  the  State  and  in  the  Na- 
tion." It  was  recognized  that,  in  order  to  serve  the 
state  in  a  truly  eminent  manner,  the  university  would 
have  to  maintain  a  strength  which  would  involve  serving 
others  as  well.  It  could  not  accomplish  its  object  while 
remaining  a  merely  provincial  institution.  The  impres- 
sion produced  by  the  Jubilee  was  reinforced  by  other 
circumstances.  The  exhibits  of  the  university,  especially 
those  prepared  by  the  agricultural  department,  had 
scored  high  at  the  St.  Louis  Exposition  in  1903.  A 
group  of  British  publicists,  known  as  the  Mosely  Edu- 
cational Commission,  toured  the  United  States  in  the 
autumn  of  1903  and  issued  a  report  the  following 
spring.  These  men  were  particularly  struck  by  the 
relations  of  government  and  education  in  America. 
Among  the  state  universities,  "Wisconsin  received  sub- 
stantial notice  and  was  given  a  high  rating.  The  points 
selected  for  peculiar  commendation  were  the  enterprise 
of  the  agricultural  department,  the  strength  of  the  uni- 
versity in  History  and  Political  Science,  the  excellence 
of  the  buildings,  and  the  unexpected  adequacy  of  the 
library.  The  following  autumn  Mr.  George  Peabody  of 
New  York  subsidized  a  visit  to  "Wisconsin  on  the  part 
of  some  forty  representatives  of  the  state  of  Georgia, 
including  the  governor  of  the  state  and  the  chancellor 
of  the  university.  The  event  was  regarded  as  broadly 
significant  and  was  noticed  by  journals  of  national  cir- 
culation. During  the  next  three  or  four  years,  culmi- 
nating in  1908,  Wisconsin  was  the  subject  of  numerous 
unsolicited  popular  articles,  most  of  them  stressing  the 
practical   work   of   the   university   in   agricultural   re- 


358  WISCONSIN 

search  and  in  extension  and  the  close  cooperation  be- 
tween the  university  and  the  state  government. 

The  state  was  in  the  midst  of  a  programme  of  advanced 
legislation  which  was  awakening  national  curiosity  and 
among  the  striking  features  of  its  procedure  was  the 
use  being  made  of  the  resources  of  the  university.  Be- 
ginning in  1907  with  a  direct  appropriation  of  $20,000, 
university  extension  was  rapidly  developed  in  a  manner 
and  on  a  scale  never  before  tried.  The  novelty  and  mag- 
nitude of  the  experiment  and  its  consistency  with  the 
other  undertakings  for  which  "Wisconsin  was  becoming 
famous  drew  increased  attention  to  the  university  and 
the  state.  Theodore  Roosevelt  in  the  Outlook,  Dr.  Shaw 
in  the  Review  of  Reviews,  and  other  critics  of  American 
institutions  who  had  the  ear  of  the  nation,  joined  the 
chorus  of  eulogists.  Of  course  there  were  dissenting 
voices;  but  on  the  whole  the  tone  of  the  remarks  was 
exceedingly  respectful.  Two  books  on  Wisconsin  ap- 
peared in  the  spring  of  1912,  Dr.  Charles  McCarthy's 
The  Wisconsin  Idea  (Macmillan),  with  an  introduction 
by  Roosevelt,  and  a  book  by  Dr.  Frederick  C.  Howe, 
entitled,  Wisconsin,  An  Experiment  in  Democracy 
(Scribners).  Both  volumes  dealt  primarily  with  the 
political  reorganization  of  the  state;  but  each  gave  im- 
portance to  the  function  of  the  university  in  distributing 
useful  knowledge  to  the  people  and  in  providing  the 
state  government  with  the  expert  services  required  by 
its  new  activities.  Both  volumes  were  copiously  re- 
viewed, The  Wisconsin  Idea  supplying  the  basis  for  a 
widely  circulated  English  article  of  the  same  title,  pub- 
lished in  the  Contemporary  Review.  Both  books  were 
uncritical.  Dr.  Howe's  book  glorified  the  party  in 
power  and  its  leader  in  a  manner  which  gave  it  the  tone 
of  a  partisan  document.    That  of  Dr.  McCarthy,  though 


UNDER  VAN  HISE  359 

confessedly  done  in  haste,  was  the  more  solid  of  the 
two;  but  its  basic  parts  were  vitiated  by  exaggeration 
of  the  German  provenience  of  the  "Wisconsin  idea  and 
by  undue  scorn  for  the  culture  of  the  American  sea- 
board and  for  all  aristocratic  contaminations.  It  is 
doubtful  if  the  hanging  of  these  companion  portraits 
in  the  state  dining-room  really  improved  the  house. 
"Explaining  "Wisconsin"  as  it  was  denominated  by  a 
writer  in  the  Nation  gave  indications  of  becoming  a 
leading  industry  and  "the  little  old  U.  S.  A.,"  though 
still  polite,  exhibited  unmistakable  signs  of  ennui. 

"We  must  return  for  a  moment  to  the  Jubilee.  The 
Jubilee  was  organized  by  the  faculty  under  the  direc- 
tion of  Professor  Comstock  and  was  worth  all  the  effort 
expended  upon  it,  simply  as  an  incident  in  the  com- 
munal life  of  Wisconsin.  It  was  probably  the  most 
exalting  ceremonial  occasion  in  the  history  of  the  uni- 
versity,— perhaps  of  the  state.  The  anniversary  chosen 
for  celebration  was  that  of  the  first  regular  Commence- 
ment. Special  piquancy  was  added  to  the  services  of 
congratulation  and  re-dedication  by  the  fact  that  their 
central  feature  was  the  first  installation  of  a  graduate 
of  the  institution  as  its  president.  The  expenses  of  the 
enterprise  were  defrayed  from  money  subscribed  by 
alumni  and  friends  of  the  university  in  sums  ranging 
from  one  dollar  to  a  thousand  dollars.  Enough  was 
left  over  to  provide  for  the  publication  of  a  handsome 
commemorative  volume.  For  the  sake  of  scenic  harmony, 
but  not  without  some  precedent  clashing  of  tempera- 
ments, the  faculty  adopted,  for  the  occasion,  academic 
costume.  Other  universities  and  learned  bodies  were 
most  cordial  in  their  assistance.  Delegates  were  ac- 
credited from  seventy-nine  universities  and  fourteen 
learned  societies  of  this  country,  and  of  foreign  coun- 


360  WISCONSIN 

tries.  A  very  large  proportion  of  these  were  actually 
in  attendance  and  many  institutions  sent  several  repre- 
sentatives; there  were  eight  from  the  University  of 
Chicago  and  four  from  the  University  of  Michigan. 
There  were,  besides,  representatives  of  various  schools, 
a  large  number  of  special  guests,  and  the  officers  of  the 
university  and  the  state.  Many  of  the  delegates,  because 
of  some  association  with  "Wisconsin,  had  sentiments  of 
affection  or  relevance  toward  the  institution  and  the 
ceremonies  were  starred  with  urbane  allusions.  The  fes- 
tival occupied  five  days  of  a  week  in  June.  The  morn- 
ings were  consumed  in  oratory,  academic  processions 
and  public  ceremonies;  the  afternoons  were  devoted  to 
concerts,  excursions,  and  inspections;  the  evenings  to 
receptions,  banquets,  and  spectacles, — a  torchlight  pro- 
cession and  student  harlequinade,  a  water  fete  and  illu- 
mination on  the  lake,  and  so  on.  The  spectacle  which 
the  mind  revives  with  most  delight  is  of  the  black-robed 
procession  under  leafy  elms  or  against  the  library  marble 
— then  in  the  pride  of  newness — all  variegated  by  the 
vivid  "Wisconsin  colors  with  which  were  mingled  the 
bright  hoods  of  Oxford,  Cambridge,  and  London,  of 
Yale  and  Harvard,  of  Kansas  and  California. 

The  only  serious  disappointment  was  the  absence  of 
Dr.  Bascom  whose  illness  at  the  last  moment  prevented 
him  from  making  the  journey  from  Williamstown.  His 
Baccalaureate  Address  was,  at  his  request,  read  by 
Mr.  Olin.  The  only  dull  occasion  was  the  formal  dinner 
on  "Wednesday  evening.  The  speakers  were  distin- 
guished enough;  perhaps  the  guests  were  sated  with 
four  days  of  eloquence.  The  Inauguration  ceremonies 
occurred  on  Tuesday  morning,  June  7.  It  was  Wis- 
consin's day  and  its  chief  piece  was  the  memorable 
Inaugural  Address  of  the  president.    This  was  preceded 


UNDER  VAN  HISE  361 

by  addresses  on  behalf  of  the  various  university  inter- 
ests, for  the  state  by  Governor  LaFollette,  the  presi- 
dent 's  class-mate  and  friend ;  for  the  regents  by  Colonel 
Vilas;  for  the  alumni  by  Congressman  Eseh;  for  the 
faculty  by  Professor  Turner;  for  the  students  by  Mr. 
Eben  Minahan;  for  the  sister  universities  by  President 
Harper.  On  "Wednesday  morning  came  the  Jubilee  cere- 
monies consisting  of  the  presentation  of  delegates,  fol- 
lowed by  addresses  by  five  university  presidents :  Gilman 
of  Johns  Hopkins,  Jesse  of  Missouri,  "Wheeler  of  Cali- 
fornia, Northrop  of  Minnesota,  and  Angell  of  Michigan. 
The  large  sanity  of  the  first  and  the  touching  eloquence 
of  the  last  made  the  day  one  to  be  remembered.  Thurs- 
day morning  was  mainly  consumed  in  conferring  de- 
grees; but  there  were  two  notable  addresses:  one  by 
ex-President  Chamberlin  on  The  State  University  and 
Research,  and  an  address  on  Tlie  Unity  of  Learning  by 
a  representative  of  Oxford,  Principal  William  Peterson 
of  McGill  University. 

The  last  address  was  one  of  the  brilliant  triumphs  of 
the  celebration,  second  only  to  the  powerful  manifesto 
of  the  president  in  significance,  and  supplementing  it  in 
complementary  colors.  Coming  at  the  very  end  of  an 
arduous  programme,  it  opened  a  totally  new  box  of  tints 
and  completely  revived  an  audience  beginning  to  droop 
under  five  days  of  earnest  speech-making.  It  deployed 
so  harmlessly  and  so  genial  was  its  tone,  that  one  was 
a  bit  startled  upon  realizing  that  some  archness  was 
intended  when  the  speaker  explained  in  his  opening  that 
on  former  peregrinations  he  had  never  been  so  far  "West, 
or  rather,  he  preferred  to  say,  quite  so  near  what  he 
had  been  told  was  to  be  considered  ' '  the  center  of  Amer- 
ican gravity."  A  sly  allusion  to  the  heaviness  of  last 
night's  dinner  was  thinkable;  and  in  general,  the  pre- 


362  WISCONSIN 

ceding  speakers  could  not  be  justly  accused  of  having 
erred  on  the  side  of  frivolity.  Yet,  for  all  its  cunning, 
there  was  in  the  address  of  the  Oxford  representative 
such  accomplished  simplicity,  such  Tightness  of  feeling, 
so  much  modesty  in  explaining  the  ideals  of  Oxford  and 
eloquence  in  her  defense  against  the  gross  aspersions 
of  a  recent  writer  in  one  of  our  vulgarest  and  most 
widely  read  magazines,  there  was,  in  fine,  so  choice  a 
mixture  of  the  qualities,  which  Johnson  praised  in  Addi- 
son, of  "familiarity  without  coarseness  and  elegance 
without  ostentation,"  that  the  speaker  was  plainly  a 
more  appealing  persuasion  than  any  he  presumed  to 
utter  toward  a  discipline  that  makes,  first  of  all,  for  the 
making  of  men.  Thus  a  son  of  Oxford  added  the  con- 
summating touch  of  brightness  and  charm  to  an  inspir- 
ing episode  in  the  life  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin. 
The  great  plans  for  the  development  of  the  university 
upon  a  new  scale  which  were  unfolded  at  the  Jubilee 
were  founded  upon  definite  knowledge  of  still  broader 
plans  for  the  development  of  the  state.  The  LaFollette 
wing  of  the  Republican  party  had  come  into  power  in 
1900  and,  at  the  opening  of  the  Van  Hise  administra- 
tion, was  just  settling  to  the  collar.  The  progressive 
programme  contemplated  a  larger  use  of  public  money 
for  the  public  good,  and  the  university  as  a  recognized 
instrument  of  the  public  service  was  to  share  in  this 
liberality.  The  object  of  the  progressives  was  to  develop 
the  state  government  into  a  power  suitable  to  cope  with 
the  great  business  organizations  so  that  it  might  protect 
unorganized  interests  against  oppression,  preserve  the 
natural  resources  of  the  commonwealth  from  private 
plunder  or  appropriation,  and  so  distribute  the  burden 
of  taxation  that  organized  capital  would  be  compelled 
to  stand  its  full  share  in  supporting  the  agencies  created 


UNDER  VAN  HISE  363 

to  control  it.  In  order  to  make  it  more  difficult  for 
special  interests  to  influence  the  personnel  of  govern- 
ment, the  direct  primary  system  of  party  nominations 
was  adopted  in  1903.  This  was  improved  in  1911  and 
supplemented  with  a  corrupt  practices  act.  In  1903, 
also,  the  ad  valorem  taxation  of  railroads  was  put  into 
effect,  involving  the  creation  of  a  Railway  Rate  Commis- 
sion with  powers  that  would  prevent  the  railway  com- 
panies from  passing  the  tax  on  to  the  public.  Its  juris- 
diction was  soon  extended  to  all  so-called  "public  util- 
ities." A  comprehensive  civil  service  law  was  adopted, 
removing  from  political  influence  an  army  of  stenogra- 
phers, clerks,  assistants,  and  minor  officers  of  the  state. 
A  Tax  Commission  was  created  for  the  more  scientific 
and  disinterested  solution  of  the  tax  problem,  resulting 
in  the  adoption  of  the  income  tax  system  in  1911.  The 
passage  in  this  year  of  an  Employers'  Liability  Act 
carried  with  it  the  creation  of  an  Industrial  Commission 
for  the  adjudication  of  claims.  The  practices  of  banks, 
of  insurance  companies,  and  of  many  other  agencies 
capable  of  abusing  the  confidence  of  patrons  were  regu- 
lated by  more  specific  laws  and  brought  under  rigid 
supervision  of  permanent  state  commissions.  A  super- 
visory Board  of  Public  Affairs  was  established  in  1911. 
The  political  campaign  of  1910  centered  in  a  deter- 
mined attempt  to  overthrow  the  prevailing  regime  and 
issued  in  an  overwhelming  endorsement  of  its  policies 
by  the  voters  of  the  state.  As  a  consequence  the  progres- 
sive programme  was  extended  and  confirmed  by  the  legis- 
lature of  1911  in  measures  of  which  examples  have  been 
given.  In  formulating  this  mass  of  new  legislation 
which,  particularly  in  the  single  session  of  1911,  was 
of  amazing  extent,  the  "Wisconsin  legislators  had  the 
assistance  of  the  Legislative  Reference  Library,  with  its 


364  WISCONSIN 

corps  of  trained  elerks  and  bill  drafting  department, 
that  had  been  established  in  the  State  Capitol  early 
in  the  progressive  period  under  the  direction  of  Dr. 
McCarthy. 

It  will  be  seen  that  such  a  system  of  governmental 
control  as  is  here  briefly  sketched  contemplates  the 
employment  in  the  public  service  of  a  large  body  of 
specially  trained  men.  Nothing  could  be  more  natural 
than  that  a  goodly  number  of  such  specialists  should 
be  recruited  from  the  faculty  of  the  university.  This 
is  exactly  what  happened.  Not  only  were  several  mem- 
bers of  the  faculty  called  to  take  places  directly  upon 
commissions,  but  a  much  larger  number  were  employed 
to  give  technical  service  in  subordinate  capacities.  It 
was  natural,  too,  that  during  the  formulation  of  so  much 
untried  legislation  and  administration,  university  spe- 
cialists should  be  asked  by  members  of  the  legislature 
and  by  the  state  officers  to  give  assistance  and  advice 
in  their  fields  of  special  knowledge.  By  1910,  there  were 
thirty-five  professors  of  the  university  who  were  giving 
part  time  to  some  branch  of  the  state  service.  Many 
of  these,  along  with  advanced  students  of  their  depart- 
ments, were  employed  in  the  work  of  valuation  that 
was  going  on.  Men  to  whom  the  new  system  of  state 
control  was  unwelcome,  harboring  the  old  grudge  of 
the  practical  man  against  the  theorist  and  piqued  in 
their  fortunes,  challenged  the  validity  of  the  findings, 
and  even  the  good  faith,  of  these  servants  of  the  state. 
The  cry  arose  that  the  university  was  in  politics  and 
murmurs  were  rife  that  it  was  becoming  too  expensive. 
Admirers  of  the  university  added  fuel  to  the  fire  by 
magnifying  the  participation  of  the  university  in  state 
affairs,  and  the  officers  of  the  institution  were  well  put 
to  it  to  preserve  a  discrimination  in  the  popular  mind 


UNDER  VAN  HISE  365 

between  "service  to  the  state"  and  political  activity.  It 
was  a  legitimate  distinction,  but  it  was  one  which  those 
interested  in  doing  so  could  easily  obscure.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  the  vast  majority  of  the  faculty  had  little 
leisure  for  politics,  being  sufficiently  occupied — as  they 
should  have  been — with  their  subjects  and  their  teach- 
ing. Another  ambiguity  arose  in  relation  to  the  cost 
of  the  institution.  Its  expansion  into  collateral  fields 
of  activity  and  its  large  acquisitions  of  permanent  prop- 
erty in  lands  and  buildings  made  it  easy  for  the  care- 
less or  mischievous  to  completely  misrepresent  the  cost 
to  the  state  of  operating  the  university  proper.  Not 
infrequently  the  gross  expenditure  for  a  given  year 
would  be  exhibited  as  the  annual  cost  of  operation,  ig- 
noring the  offset  of  half  a  million  dollars  in  student 
fees,  the  expenditures  on  capital  account,  the  large  ex- 
penditure for  extension,  both  agricultural  and  general, 
and  the  great  sums  which  merely  passed  through  the 
treasury  on  revolving  funds.  One  furious  critic  kindled 
to  a  white  heat  of  indignation  over  the  iniquity  of 
drawing  fifty  thousand  dollars  from  the  state  treasury 
to  send  a  few  students  about  the  country  playing  foot- 
ball, although  anyone  who  presumed  to  an  opinion  on 
the  subject  should  have  known  that  these  moneys  were 
the  receipts  of  games,  merely  handled  for  convenience 
through  the  regular  financial  agencies  of  the  univer- 
sity. 

Matters  came  to  a  crisis  in  1914.  In  that  year  the 
progressive  party  was  overthrown  and  a  new  adminis- 
tration came  into  power  committed  to  a  policy  of  re- 
trenchment and  more  conservative  legislation.  The  uni- 
versity was  an  issue  throughout  the  campaign  and  dur- 
ing the  ensuing  legislative  session  the  officers  of  the 
institution  had  much  cause  for  anxiety.    To  make  mat- 


366  WISCONSIN 

ters  worse  the  university,  during  the  autumn  and  win- 
ter months  preceding  the  meeting  of  the  legislature,  had 
to  pass  through  the  ordeal  of  the  now  notorious  Allen 
"survey."  The  survey  did  not  originate  in  hostility  to 
the  university.  It  was  undertaken  under  the  auspices 
of  the  Board  of  Public  Affairs  appointed  by  Governor 
McGovern,  who  was  an  alumnus  of  the  institution  and 
its  cordial  friend.  It  soon  became  evident,  however, 
that  the  survey  was  to  be  conducted  in  an  unfriendly 
spirit  and  the  faculty  and  officers  of  the  institution — 
while  employing  every  mean's  in  their  power  to  assist 
the  manager  of  the  survey  in  getting  the  information  he 
desired — prepared  themselves  to  confront  the  expected 
injustice  with  their  own  version  and  interpretation  of 
the  facts.  When  printed  the  Allen  report  comprised 
527  quarto  pages  of  fine  print,  to  which  were  added 
about  250  pages  of  university  comment.  The  report  re- 
vealed an  animus  in  some  parts  and  a  futility  in  others 
which  discredited  the  entire  survey  and  in  the  end  it 
had  virtually  no  effect  upon  the  situation.  As  for  the 
new  government  of  the  state,  it  showed  itself  not  un- 
willing to  listen  to  the  explanation  of  the  university 
authorities  as  to  the  plans  and  requirements  of  the  in- 
stitution, and  if  any  thoughts  of  seriously  crippling  the 
university  or  reducing  it  to  subservience  to  the  business 
interests  of  the  state  had  been  entertained  by  those 
in  positions  of  effective  influence,  the  plan  was  speedily 
abandoned.  The  university  administration  was  com- 
pelled to  accept  a  considerable  reduction  of  its  esti- 
mates for  the  immediate  future  and  to  abandon,  in 
part,  its  plans  for  constructional  development;  the 
progress  of  the  institution  was  slackened  but  not 
stopped.  It  was  shown  conclusively  that  the  university 
had  gained  an  invincible  hold  upon  the  sentiment  of 


UNDER  VAN  HISE  367 

the  state  as  a  whole  which  would  defy  any  attempts  to 
identify  it  with  one  political  faction  or  another. 

In  the  Survey  of  December,  1915,  Professor  George 
H.  Mead,  of  the  University  of  Chicago,  after  reviewing 
in  great  detail  the  Allen  report  and  the  difficulties  con- 
fronting the  university  in  the  political  agitation  of 
1914-15,  presented  the  following  admirable  interprets 
tion  of  the  sequel : 

"It  is  in  the  study  of  such  incidents  that  we  realize 
the  growth  that  is  going  on  underneath  the  surface  of 
society.  The  university  has  become  a  part  of  the  people 
of  the  state.  It  is  true  that  favoring  political  condi- 
tions during  the  last  decade  have  attended  its  remarkable 
recent  growth.  But  these  conditions  have  merely  given 
it  the  opportunity  of  developing.  And  the  unfavorable 
political  conditions  of  the  last  year  could  not  materially 
affect  this  life  and  growth.  No  man  and  no  party  could 
be  a  power  in  Wisconsin  who  was  regarded  as  an  enemy 
of  the  university.  The  result  of  the  year  has  justified 
President  Van  Hise's  programme  of  carrying  the  univer- 
sity to  the  people.  For  while  this  has  rendered  the 
university  popular  it  has  not  detracted  from  the  scien- 
tific and  cultural  activities  within  the  university. 

"It  is  easy  to  overestimate  the  import  of  the  pro- 
posed measures  which  would  invade  the  control  of  uni- 
versity life  by  the  legislature.  The  fact  is  that  the 
university  had  only  to  present  carefully  its  own  case 
to  the  legislature  to  find  that  the  university  and  its 
administration  has  the  confidence  of  the  community.  A 
university  is  not  an  artificial  thing  even  in  its  detached 
scientific  and  aesthetic  expressions.  It  is  within  the 
province  and  power  of  individuals  to  present  the  occa- 
sions under  which  such  institutions  arise.  They  have 
never  created  them. 

"Just  as  private  foundations  inevitably  undertake 
public  tasks  because  they  are  there  to  be  done,  so  our 
politics  cannot  in  the  end  avoid  serving  public  institu- 
tions that  have  become  a  part  of  society. ' ' 


368  WISCONSIN 

As  has  been  said,  the  university  shared  in  the  liber- 
ality toward  all  public  agencies  which  was  inaugurated 
by  the  progressive  administration.  Despite  many  gloomy 
predictions  that  regulative  legislation  would  ' '  drive  away 
business,"  the  production  and  wealth  of  the  state,  both 
in  agriculture  and  manufacture,  increased  enormously 
during  these  years.  In  the  decade  1900-10,  the  as- 
sessed valuation  of  the  state  advanced  from  three- 
quarters  of  a  billion  to  two  and  three-quarters  billions 
of  dollars.  The  mill  tax  principle  of  providing  support 
for  the  university,  which  had  been  abandoned  in  1899 
in  favor  of  fixed  appropriations,  was  resumed  in  1905 
and  a  two-sevenths  mill  tax  was  imposed  for  current 
expenses.  The  legislature  of  1907  added  an  appropria- 
tion of  $200,000  a  year  for  two  years  for  permanent 
improvements  and  two  years  later  the  avails  of  the  mill 
tax  were  enlarged  by  an  appropriation  of  $100,000  a 
year  for  operation  in  addition  to  a  special  appropriation 
to  provide  for  the  establishment  of  university  extension. 
The  astonishing  legislature  of  1911  raised  the  rate  of 
the  university  tax  from  two-sevenths  to  three-eighths 
of  a  mill,  raised  the  appropriation  for  permanent  equip- 
ment to  $300,000  a  year,  and  increased  the  appropriation 
for  general  extension  to  $225,000  and  for  agricultural 
extension  to  $80,000  for  the  biennium.  In  addition,  a 
special  appropriation  of  $75,000  a  year  for  two  years 
was  made  for  a  woman's  dormitory,  provision  was  made 
for  the  construction  of  the  north  wing  of  the  historical 
library  building,  and  there  was  an  appropriation  of 
$47,000  a  year  for  five  years  for  the  purchase  of  land. 
Much  of  the  work  done  by  the  legislature  of  1913  was 
undone  by  its  successor,  in  consequence  of  the  reaction 
which  has  been  described.  It  was  during  the  period  of 
five  years  bearing  upon  1911  as  a  center  that  the  material 


UNDER  VAN  HISE  369 

expansion  of  the  university  was  greatest.  Since  that 
time  the  institution  has  been  so  supported  by  the  state 
that  its  increase  of  students  has  been  measurably  taken 
care  of  and  its  work  in  instruction  and  research  has 
not  yet  been  seriously  crippled ;  but  constructional  work 
has  been  very  nearly  at  a  standstill  since  1915,  so  that 
at  the  present  writing,  with  a  much  larger  attendance 
than  ever  before,  there  is  urgent  need  for  a  substantial 
increase  of  space  and  material  facilities. 

Since  the  war  the  university  has  been  able  to  meet 
its  obligations  only  because  the  withdrawal  of  students 
and  members  of  the  faculty  to  enter  the  service  of  the 
nation  enabled  it  to  reduce  expenditures  during  the  war 
and  thus  accumulate  a  surplus  which  was  augmented  by 
remuneration  from  the  federal  government  for  the  hous- 
ing, feeding,  and  instruction  of  4,500  soldiers  in  uni- 
form. The  situation  in  which  the  university  finds  itself, 
together  with  a  summary  of  its  financial  history  during 
the  six  years  preceding  the  war,  is  clearly  presented 
,in  the  following  extract  from  a  recent  article  by  the 
business  manager  of  the  university: 

"From  1911-12  to  1913-14  the  total  annual  receipts 
from  the  state  for  both  the  property  tax  and  the  general 
fund  for  all  purposes  increased  from  one  and  a  half 
million  to  nearly  two  million,  or  about  22%.  During 
this  period  receipts  from  the  state  for  the  purchase  of 
land,  new  buildings  and  for  the  special  university  activi- 
ties mentioned  above  increased  from  less  than  half  a 
million  to  three-quarters  of  a  million,  or  about  60%.  In 
other  words,  the  support  from  the  state  for  strictly  in- 
structional work  at  Madison  increased  from  almost 
$1,100,000  to  about  $1,150,000,  or  about  5y2%,  while 
the  enrollment  of  regular  students  increased  from  4,149 
to  4,686,  or  some  13%.     During  the  same  period  the 


370  WISCONSIN 

average  annual  contribution  of  state  funds  for  land  and 
new  buildings  amounted  to  over  $400,000. 

"From  1913-14  to  1916-17  inclusive  the  annual  sup- 
port of  the  state  for  strictly  instructional  work  at  Madi- 
son increased  from  about  $1,150,000  to  about  $1,280,000, 
or  some  11%,  while  the  enrollment  of  regular  students 
increased  from  4,686  to  5,318,  or  some  13V2%.  At  the 
same  time  the  average  annual  contribution  of  the  state 
for  land  and  new  buildings  was  reduced  to  about  $255,- 
000,  while  the  contributions  of  state  funds  for  the  activi- 
ties of  extension  work  and  the  other  lines  indicated  above 
increased  from  about  $260,000  to  over  $330,000,  or  about 
28%. 

' '  In  other  words,  during  these  two  periods  of  six  years 
the  enrollment  of  regular  students  increased  from  4,149 
to  5,318,  or  about  28%,  while  the  state  support  for  the 
instruction  of  these  students  increased  about  1TV2%. 
During  the  latter  part  of  this  period  a  very  material 
reduction  occurred  in  the  appropriations  for  land  and 
buildings,  while  at  the  same  time  the  university  faced 
a  steadily  increasing  cost  of  labor,  supplies,  material 
and  instructional  salaries.  It  is  perfectly  evident  that 
the  state  support  of  the  university  must  be  placed  on 
a  higher  basis  if  the  institution  is  to  continue  service 
in  the  future  as  in  the  past,  and  large  sums  will  also 
have  to  be  provided  for  expansion  if  the  university  is 
adequately  to  perform  its  function  of  service  to  the 
state." 


It  appears  from  these  figures  that,  notwithstanding 
alleged  extravagance  in  the  years  immediately  preceding 
the  reaction  of  1914,  the  university  was  already  falling 
behind  the  increase  of  student  numbers  in  its  expendi- 
tures for  instruction,  whereas,  from  that  time  until  the 
opening  of  the  war  it  lost  less  ground  in  the  provision 
of  instruction  but  failed  to  keep  the  pace  in  construc- 
tional development.  The  years  just  before  1914  were 
the  years  when  the  university  was  most  active  in  the 


UNDER  VAN  HISE  371 

construction  of  buildings  and  in  acquisitions  of  land. 
During  the  five  years  from  1908  to  1913,  the  expenditure 
for  buildings  almost  exactly  equaled  the  expenditure 
for  the  same  purpose  during  the  ten  years  preceding. 

At  the  same  time  it  was  reaching  out  for  land.  Vari- 
ous adjacent  city  properties  were  added  to  the  campus. 
Hundreds  of  acres  of  land  were  acquired  for  experi- 
mental purposes  in  various  parts  of  the  state.  With 
money  appropriated  for  the  purpose  in  1911,  the  uni- 
versity secured  command  of  the  lake  shore  for  three 
miles  to  the  west.  This  was  to  prevent  the  city  from 
overlapping  the  campus  and,  incidentally,  provided  more 
land  for  use  by  the  College  of  Agriculture.  By  1914,  the 
landed  holdings  of  the  university  amounted  to  over 
fourteen  hundred  acres  of  which  about  six  hundred 
and  thirty-eight  acres  lay  in  a  continuous,  though  irreg- 
ular, area  from  Park  Street  to  Eagle  Heights.  Thus 
the  university  is  able  to  preserve  for  public  enjoyment 
this  beautiful  lake  shore  tract  which  is  sure  to  increase 
in  value  and  whatever  may  be  the  growth  of  the  city 
or  of  the  university,  will  provide  a  campus  sufficient 
for  all  time. 

During  the  first  five  years  of  this  period,  construction 
proceeded  at  almost  exactly  the  same  rate  as  during 
the  preceding  five  years.  Plans  for  a  Chemistry  Build- 
ing, to  be  placed  at  the  southwest  corner  of  University 
Hill  were  being  prepared  for  President  Van  Hise  while 
he  was  in  Europe,  the  summer  following  his  election. 
The  building  was  occupied  two  years  later.  About  the 
same  time  a  Hydraulics  Laboratory  was  erected  on  the 
lake  shore,  and  two  years  later  the  buildings  for  Agron- 
omy and  Agricultural  Engineering  were  completed.  All 
of  these,  with  the  Engineering  Building  and  Agricul- 
tural Hall,  mentioned  in  a  preceding  chapter,   estab- 


372  WISCONSIN 

lished  a  style  of  brick  construction  of  utilitarian  appear- 
ance which  many  consider  unfortunate.  The  north  wing 
of  University  Hall  was  added  in  1905-6  and  the  same 
year  a  limestone  dwelling  at  the  corner  of  Park  and 
State  Streets  was  remodeled  and  enlarged  to  form  the 
present  Administration  Building.  All  of  these  build- 
ings, except  the  last,  were  designed  to  enlarge  the  space 
available  for  class  and  laboratory  instruction. 

As  soon  as  the  large  continuing  appropriation  for  per- 
manent improvements  made  in  1907  became  available 
the  main  building  programme  of  the  Van  Hise  period  be- 
gan. Fortunately,  at  this  time,  the  university  received 
from  Messrs.  Laird  and  Cret,  architects,  plans  for  the 
constructional  development  of  the  university  which  had 
been  prepared  in  consultation  with  the  landscape  archi- 
tect, Mr.  John  Nolan.  More  fortunately  still,  the  de- 
tails of  material  and  exterior  design  were  placed  in 
charge  of  the  present  state  architect.  Mr.  Peabody  saw 
at  once  that  the  simple  designs  in  native  sandstone  which 
had  been  indicated  by  the  oldest  buildings  of  the  uni- 
versity, should  be  perpetuated  except  for  such  modi- 
fications on  the  westward  slope  as  were  necessary  to 
form  a  transition  to  the  recalcitrant  brick  of  the  agri- 
cultural section.  How  successful  this  transition  will  be 
is  not  yet  assured.  The  first  buildings  of  the  new  era 
were  widely  separated  in  location  and  object  and  neither 
was  for  instructional  use  in  the  ordinary  sense.  These 
were  Lathrop  Hall  and  the  Stock  Pavilion,  the  one  on 
that  corner  of  the  upper  campus  which  was  dedicated 
in  1870  to  the  women  of  the  university  and  the  other 
adjacent  to  the  farm  buildings  at  the  extreme  west  of 
the  agricultural  section.  The  former  is  a  large  and 
handsome  building  thoroughly  equipped  to  serve  as  a 
center  for  the  social  life  of  the  women,  containing  among 


UNDER  VAN  HISE  373 

other  conveniences  a  spacious  drawing-room,  a  gym- 
nasium and  swimming  pool,  and  a  cafeteria-restaurant 
serving  three  thousand  meals  a  day  which  have  the  dis- 
tinction of  being  the  best  for  the  money  in  the  city 
of  Madison.  The  Stock  Pavilion,  oddly  enough,  is  an 
extremely  fine  building.  Its  cattle- judging  arena  is  at 
present  the  only  indoor  area  in  the  city  capable  of 
accommodating  the  Commencement  audience.  Its  chief 
disadvantage  for  intellectual  occasions  is  an  aroma  of 
association  which  might  suggest  to  the  pedant  some 
indelicate  allusions  in  Jonson's  Bartholomew  Fair  to  the 
former  uses  of  the  theater  in  which  it  was  played.  To 
the  same  period  belong  the  great  Central  Heating  Plant 
on  University  Avenue  and  the  Forest  Products  Labora- 
tory at  Camp  Randall. 

Buildings  of  some  consequence  erected  between  1911 
and  1914  were  Barnard  Hall  which  was  added  to  the 
woman's  group  in  1912,  the  Biology  Building  erected 
the  same  year  on  the  slope  between  University  Hall  and 
South  Hall,  the  buildings  for  Horticulture,  Agricultural 
Chemistry,  Extension  and  Home  Economics,  the  Uni- 
versity High  School,  a  Service  Building,  and  important 
additions  to  the  Engineering  Building,  the  Historical 
Library  Building,  the  Chemistry  Building,  the  Dairy 
Building,  and  the  Gymnasium.  The  Olin  home,  ad- 
joining the  President's  House  on  the  shore  of  the  lake 
was  enlarged  and  accommodated  to  the  use  of  the  de- 
partment of  Student  Health.  A  little  later  the  adjoin- 
ing Raymer  property  was  acquired  and  served  as  a 
temporary  Student  Infirmary.  Within  the  year  more 
adequate  quarters  have  been  provided  in  the  Bradley 
Memorial  Hospital  and  the  new  Student  Infirmary.  The 
newest  capital  building  and  the  only  one  of  great  capac- 
ity erected  in  recent  years  is  the  building  for  Physics 


374  WISCONSIN 

and  Economics  which  occupies  the  space  next  to  the 
Chemistry  Building  at  the  west  base  of  University- 
Hill.  It  was  opened  in  the  fall  of  1917.  Appropriations 
for  a  virtual  reduplication  of  University  Hall  and  for 
the  inauguration  of  halls  of  residence,  with  a  union 
and  commons  for  men,  were  made  by  the  legislature 
of  1913,  but  were  repealed  by  the  "friends  of  the 
university"  two  years  later. 

One  other  addition  to  the  campus  should  be  men- 
tioned, the  bronze  replica  of  Weinman's  statue  of  Lin- 
coln, presented  in  1909,  by  Mr.  Thomas  E.  Brittingham. 
This  was  placed  in  a  significant  position  at  the  head 
of  the  Upper  Campus,  looking  toward  the  State  Capitol. 
"It  is  believed,"  wrote  President  Van  Hise,  "that  the 
great  character  written  in  bronze  on  the  rugged  face  of 
Abraham  Lincoln  will  be  an  inspiring  force  to  the  many 
thousands  of  students  who  attend  the  university."  It 
has  been  given  recently  a  more  fitting  emplacement, 
and  during  the  Commencement  of  1919,  Lincoln  Ter- 
race was  impressively  dedicated  in  connection  with 
memorial  services  for  the  university  men  who  fell  in  the 
war. 

Many  academic  tendencies  of  the  university  are 
roughly  implied  in  the  above  record  of  its  material 
response  and  invitations  to  the  growths  of  recent  years. 
It  remains  to  define  these  indications  with  somewhat 
greater  exactness  though  not  in  such  detail  as  will  in- 
volve, except  in  rare  cases,  the  mention  of  persons 
whose  names  are  to  be  found  in  the  current  bulletins 
of  the  institution.  The  total  growth  of  the  university 
in  the  number  of  students  in  attendance  has  already 
been  shown,  and  a  full  analysis  of  attendance  may  be 
found  in  Appendix  A.  One  important  change  which  is 
not   thus   indicated   is   the   great   increase   of   students 


UNDER  VAN  HISE  375 

from  outside  the  state.  In  this  connection  it  will  per- 
haps be  sufficient  to  point  out  that  during  the  ten  years 
between  1904  and  1914  the  total  student  fees  received 
by  the  university  increased  about  threefold,  whereas, 
during  the  last  eight  years  of  that  decade,  the  fees  re- 
ceived from  non-resident  students  increased  tenfold, 
from  $14,500  to  $145,600.  According  to  the  report  of 
the  business  manager  for  the  year  1914-15,  there  were 
in  residence  1,537  "alien"  students,  or  about  30%  of 
the  total  enrollment  for  the  regular  session  of  the  uni- 
versity. A  substantial  increase  of  the  non-resident  tui- 
tion by  the  legislature  of  1915  placed  the  expense  of 
tuition  at  Wisconsin  on  a  level  with  that  of  private 
institutions  such  as  the  University  of  Chicago  and  put 
Wisconsin  on  a  basis  in  this  respect  which  was  radically 
different  from  that  of  all  neighboring  state  institutions. 
Although  this  change  produced  no  substantial  decrease, 
it  doubtless  prevented  a  rapid  increase,  in  the  number 
of  foreign  students  who  thereafter  entered  the  Univer- 
sity of  Wisconsin,  especially  for  the  first  two  years 
of  the  college  course. 

Another  evidence  of  growing  strength  has  been  the 
increase  in  the  number  of  students  entering  the  under- 
graduate courses  of  the  university  with  advanced  stand- 
ing. President  Van  Hise  early  made  a  point  of  friendly 
relations  with  the  private  colleges  of  the  state  and,  in 
1911,  the  normal  schools  of  the  state,  with  the  full 
accord  of  the  university,  were  authorized  by  the  legis- 
lature to  establish  junior  colleges.  It  was  hoped  that 
by  these  several  agencies  the  university  might  be  re- 
lieved to  some  extent  from  its  growing  burden  of  ele- 
mentary instruction.  This  effect  has  been  felt  in  some 
measure,  but  it  has  not  yet  become  conspicuous.  There 
is,  moreover,  a  limit  beyond  which  advanced  credit  can- 


376  WISCONSIN 

not  be  extended  with  good  results.  A  considerable  pro- 
portion of  the  students  who  enter  from  abroad  are  less 
adequately  prepared  for  the  work  of  the  advanced  years 
than  those  who  have  received  their  elementary  training 
in  the  departments  of  the  university.  The  same  general 
tendency  toward  more  advanced  intellectual  effort  ex- 
pressed itself  in  the  growth  of  the  Graduate  School. 
At  the  time  of  its  organization  as  a  definite  division  of 
the  university,  in  1904,  the  Graduate  School  had  an 
enrollment  of  115  of  whom  7  were  in  Engineering  and 
3  in  Agriculture.  The  graduate  enrollment  reached  its 
apex  in  1914-15,  when  there  were  492  graduates  in 
attendance  of  whom  110  were  in  Agriculture  and  17 
in  Engineering.  In  the  meantime  the  attendance  upon 
the  Summer  Session  and  the  proportion  of  graduates 
in  attendance  during  the  summer  had  very  rapidly  in- 
creased, so  that  the  grand  total  of  the  graduate  enroll- 
ment for  the  year  1915-16  was  1,082.  Since  the  high- 
est number  of  doctorates  conferred  in  any  one  year  was 
37  in  1916,  it  is  evident  that  a  large  share  of  the  grad- 
uate work  has  been  of  the  continuation  type  leading 
to  the  M.  A.  degree,  rather  than  the  research  type  lead- 
ing to  the  doctorate. 

Although  the  university  performed  no  small  work, 
then,  in  training  beginners  in  research,  the  main  bur- 
den of  investigation  fell  upon  the  developed  men  who 
constituted  the  faculty.  I  say  "burden,"  advisedly; 
for,  while  it  was  an  invigorating,  it  was  an  exacting — 
one  is  almost  justified  in  saying  an  impossible — standard 
that  Van  Hise  set  for  his  faculty.  It  was  not  quite  an 
impossible  standard  for  in  a  measure  his  own  achieve- 
ment justified  it.  But  its  application  was  in  consider- 
able degree  conditioned  by  the  situation  in  which  the 
university  found  itself  at  the  beginning  of  his  admin- 


UNDER  VAN  HISE  377 

istration.  Unquestionably  his  most  passionate  desire  for 
the  university  was  to  see  it  become  a  great  instrument 
for  the  advancement  of  knowledge.  This,  building  upon 
the  basic  idea  of  service  to  the  state,  was  the  dominant 
conception  of  his  rule.  It  was  the  ambition  encouraged 
by  the  most  far-seeing  speakers  at  the  Jubilee, — in  the 
impassioned  oration  of  Colonel  Vilas,  in  the  rounded  ad- 
dress, full  of  astonishing  prevision,  of  ex-President 
Chamberlin  upon  The  State  University  and  Research, 
and  in  the  powerful  pronunciamento  of  the  president 
himself.  It  wrestled  with  democracy  for  the  first  place 
on  the  stage;  the  problem  of  Van  Hise's  administration 
was  to  reconcile  the  two.  Beginning  with  the  declara- 
tion in  his  Inaugural  that  he  believed  it  to  be  the  duty 
and  the  privilege  of  a  state  university,  equally  with  any, 
"to  add  to  the  sum  of  human  achievement,"  he  called 
upon  his  faculty  in  the  early  years  of  his  administration 
to  bend  up  every  corporal  and  spiritual  agent  to  this 
arduous  task.  He  urged  them,  by  every  legitimate  form 
of  pressure  including  that  of  example,  to  "produce." 
Except  for  the  College  of  Agriculture,  the  university 
had  not  yet,  nor  was  it  likely  to  have  for  some  time  to 
come,  resources  that  could  be  used  specifically  for  the 
support  of  investigation.  It  followed  that,  if  the  uni- 
versity was  to  make  immediate  progress  into  this  field 
it  must  lay  upon  every  member  of  the  faculty  the 
double  charge  of  instruction  and  investigation,  and  the 
president  fortified  this  policy  by  giving  his  faculty  very 
plainly  to  understand  that  he  did  not  consider  that 
teacher  in  the  highest  degree  competent  to  inspire  others 
with  a  true  love  of  learning  who  was  not  himself  a 
seeker  after  new  knowledge. 

Although  this  is,  up  to  a  certain  point,  sound  doc- 
trine, it  is  not  to  be  accepted  without  important  quali- 


378  WISCONSIN 

fications  which  the  president,  whatever  he  may  have 
done  in  practice,  did  not  in  theory  concede.  In  the  first 
place,  in  spite  of  the  noble  recognition  of  the  pre- 
eminence of  creative  power  which  was  the  basis  of  his 
passion  for  research  and  which  caused  him  to  carry 
his  admiration  for  creative  work  into  fields  remote  from 
his  own,  Van  Hise  did  not  sufficiently  appreciate,  I 
think,  the  difference  which  is  so  great  that  it  is  almost 
one  of  kind,  between  discovery  in  science  or  in  the 
applied  humanities  and  production  in  those  fields  which 
have  been  longer  cultivated  where  there  are  required, 
on  the  part  of  the  producer  or  even  of  the  acceptable 
teacher,  large  processes  of  assimilation  and  reflection, 
and  where  too  much  haste  in  production  can  only  lead  to 
results  that  make  the  angels  weep.  Nor  is  it  universally 
true  that  men  who  have  the  investigative  gift  are  the 
most  effective  teachers,  at  least  of  under-graduates.  And 
it  is  quite  certain  that,  when  an  institution,  which  is 
primarily  one  of  teaching,  has  thrown  upon  it  the  duties 
of  elementary  instruction  on  the  part  of  the  younger 
men  and  of  administration  on  the  part  of  their  elders 
which  fell  to  the  lot  of  Wisconsin  with  the  growth  of  all 
its  colleges  in  this  period,  large  achievements  in  inves- 
tigation are  impossible.  This  is  sufficiently  proved  by 
the  experience  in  the  College  of  Agriculture  where,  the 
moment  the  collegiate  course  began  to  develop,  it  was 
complained  that  the  opportunity  for  research  was  dimin- 
ishing, and  where,  at  the  present  time,  it  is  recognized 
that  duplicate  professorships  will  have  to  be  established 
in  some  departments  if  the  work  of  research  is  to  con- 
tinue. One  of  the  events  which  most  thrilled  President 
Van  Hise  in  the  whole  course  of  his  career  as  president, 
and  through  his  appreciation  thrilled  others,  was  the 
discovery,  upon  the  death  of  Colonel  Vilas,  in  1908,  that 


UNDER  VAN  HISE  379 

a  magnificent  private  fortune  had  been  left  to  the  uni- 
versity for  the  endowment  at  some  future  time,  of  ten 
research  professorships,  with  the  proviso  that  not  more 
than  three  hours  of  teaching  each  week  might  be  required 
of  the  incumbents.  But  these  qualifications  are  mere 
details.  Even  though  we  should  prove  that  it  was  an  im- 
possible ideal  which  President  Van  Hise  set  before  the 
faculty,  it  was  none  the  less  an  inspiring  one.  If  a  few 
were  stimulated  to  cheap  production  and  mere  adver- 
tising, it  became  the  more  general  spirit  of  the  insti- 
tution to  look  for  relief  from  instruction,  not  that  a 
man  might  rest  from  his  labors,  but  that  he  might  be 
free  to  realize  himself  more  fully, — to  create.  This  was 
the  great,  the  inestimable,  gift  of  President  Van  Hise 
to  the  University  of  Wisconsin.  For  it  was  to  a  large 
extent  through  his  determination  that  this  spirit  came 
to  prevail  so  widely  in  the  university.  It  was  a  gift 
which  he  made  by  precept  and  by  example,  by  example 
more  than  by  precept,  for  his  conceptions  distanced  his 
powers  of  expression. 

It  is  true  that  during  the  middle  stretch  of  the  period 
this  great  objective  was  obscured,  obscured  to  such  a 
degree  that  keen  observers  have  thought  they  discerned 
in  other  directions  the  main  set  of  the  university.  Co- 
incident with  the  large  material  development  from  1908 
to  19i3,  came  the  sudden  development  of  collegiate  Agri- 
culture which,  with  Home  Economics,  added  a  year  or 
two  later,  produced  in  five  or  six  years,  from  what  had 
been  a  negligible  factor  in  the  central  life  of  the  uni- 
versity, a  technical  college  of  over  eleven  hundred  stu- 
dents, and  threw  a  mighty  burden  of  elementary  in- 
struction upon  the  college  of  liberal  arts.  At  the  same 
moment  and  as  a  part  of  the  same  general  temper 
began  the  demand  for  vocational  training  which  was 


380  WISCONSIN 

answered  by  the  formation  of  special  courses  within  the 
college  of  liberal  studies,  where  the  way  had  been 
paved  by  the  adoption,  in  1903,  of  a  free  elective  system 
leading  to  a  uniform  B.  A.  degree.  At  the  same  moment, 
too,  came  the  introduction  of  university  extension  which 
was  developed  so  rapidly  and  raised  such  a  hideous 
racket  that  men  of  calm  judgment  have  been  bewildered 
into  thinking  it  occupied  the  main  tent.  At  the  same 
time,  also,  the  Medical  School  was  quietly  inaugurated. 
With  respect  to  the  last  no  one  will  question  that  it  is 
a  legitimate  branch  of  university  effort,  though  it  prom- 
ises, should  it  be  extended  so  as  to  provide  the  full 
medical  education,  to  become  murderously  expensive. 
The  Medical  School  has  been,  from  its  inception,  one 
of  the  strongholds  of  research  in  the  university,  partly 
because  it  has  been  manned  with  care  to  this  end,  and 
partly  because  the  teaching  required  of  its  staff  has  been 
relatively  light.  There  remain,  then,  for  some  explana- 
tion, as  involving  the  question  of  university  ideals,  the 
engagement  in  university  extension  and  the  development 
of  vocational  courses. 

The  purpose  of  the  university  to  be  of  direct  practical 
service  to  the  people  of  the  state,  "without  regard  to 
the  preconceived  notions  of  anybody,  anywhere,  con- 
cerning the  scope  of  a  university,"  in  the  words  of  Van 
Hise,  was  nowhere  so  manifest  as  in  the  daring  swift- 
ness with  which  university  extension  was  added  almost 
at  a  stroke  to  the  capital  activities  of  the  institution. 
In  this  respect,  as  President  Birge  has  said,  "Wisconsin 
broke  the  way  into  a  new  and  great  field  of  university 
work,"  with  the  result  that  "the  life  and  work  of 
universities  the  country  over  have  been  permanently 
changed  and  enlarged."  When  this  moribund  depart- 
ment of  university  effort  attracted  Van  Hise's  atten- 


UNDER  VAN  HISE  381 

tion,  apparently  for  the  first  time  in  1906,  it  had  been 
languishing  for  a  decade  and  the  question  arose  whether 
it  should  be  definitely  abandoned  or  be  revivified.  In 
its  earlier  form  university  extension  had  depended  al- 
most entirely  upon  the  principle  of  extending  university 
influence  to  the  communities  of  the  state  through  public 
lectures  by  members  of  the  regular  staff  of  the  univer- 
sity. It  had  broken  down  mainly  because  the  average 
member  of  the  faculty  was  unable  or  unwilling  to  put 
his  matter  into  the  form  demanded  by  the  usual  popular 
audience  and  because  even  those  who  were  acceptable  as 
popular  lecturers  soon  felt  that  the  results  obtained 
were  altogether  trivial  compared  with  the  hardships  and 
the  interruptions  of  university  work  which  they  entailed. 
In  one  department,  in  the  College  of  Agriculture,  the 
activities  whose  beginnings  have  been  sketched  in  a  pre- 
ceding chapter  had  thrived  with  increasingly  beneficent 
results.  Here  they  had  been  kept  alive  by  a  body  of 
men  who  had,  as  yet,  almost  no  collegiate  teaching,  and 
who  had  virtually  a  new  science,  of  immediate  material 
value,  to  inculcate.  It  occurred  to  President  Van  Hise 
upon  reflection — he  speaks  somewhere  of  the  "slowly 
dawning  realization" — that  knowledge  in  general  was 
constantly  out-running  the  assimilation  of  the  people. 
This  soon  became  with  him  a  leading  thought,  and  it 
was  in  this  thought  that  the  new  university  extension 
was  organized.  The  older  idea  of  carrying  university 
education  beyond  the  confines  of  the  institution  was  re- 
tained, particularly  in  the  Correspondence  Department ; 
but  there  was  added  to  this  the  new  and  very  important 
idea  of  preparing  and  distributing  knowledge  for  imme- 
diate use  in  the  practical  conduct  of  life.  The  dis- 
tinction between  university  extension  in  this  sense  and 
"education  proper"  has  been  very  clearly  set  forth  by 


382  WISCONSIN 

President  Birge.  "This  is  not  a  matter  of  education 
proper  either  higher  or  lower,  not  a  matter  of  teaching 
principles  which  the  student  will  later  apply  in  practice. 
It  involves  the  transmutation  of  learning  into  such  form 
that  it  can  be  directly  used  in  the  ordering  of  affairs. 
It  means  the  extension  of  learning,  the  transmutation 
of  science  into  practice,  the  application  of  knowledge 
to  concrete  problems  of  everyday  affairs." 

The  Extension  Division  quickly  became  one  of  the 
largest,  and  from  the  nature  of  its  activities — necessarily 
one  of  the  most  elaborately  organized  departments  of 
the  university.  It  has  had,  since  1907-8,  its  separate 
appropriations  and  budget,  and  its  annual  expenditures 
now  approximate  $300,000.  This  is  in  addition  to  about 
half  that  sum  annually  expended  for  similar  purposes 
by  the  College  of  Agriculture.  The  association  of  its 
staff  with  the  regular  instruction  of  the  university  is 
almost  negligible.  In  a  certain  sense,  the  Extension 
Division  is  not  so  much  a  department  of  the  university 
as  a  special  bureau  of  the  state  administered  in  close 
association  with  the  university.  That  there  is  a  definite 
advantage  in  this  association,  however,  seems  to  be  indi- 
cated by  the  practice  in  the  College  of  Agriculture  whose 
present  management  insists  upon  maintaining  control 
of  Agricultural  Extension  instead  of  permitting  it  to 
be  absorbed  by  the  general  division. 

The  subject  of  vocational  courses  in  relation  to  the 
general  spirit  of  the  university  has  already  been  touched 
on;  but  it  must  be  reopened  for  slightly  more  definite 
treatment.  The  pronounced  accentuation  of  the  trend 
toward  vocational  courses  moved  President  Birge,  then 
dean  of  the  College  of  Letters  and  Science,  to  take  up 
the  matter  with  great  fullness  in  his  biennial  report 
of  1910.     He  pointed  out  that  there  were  then  seven 


UNDER  VAN  HISE  383 

courses  of  this  character  in  the  college,  of  which  four 
had  been  recently  organized.  These  were  the  Courses 
in  Journalism  and  Library  Science,  the  Course  in  Chem- 
istry, and  the  Course  for  the  Training  of  Teachers. 
The  Course  in  Home  Economics,  I  may  say,  had  been 
temporarily  suspended  and  had  just  been  added  to  the 
College  of  Agriculture.  All  of  these  courses,  it  was 
noted,  were  growing  rapidly  and  were  tending  to  in- 
crease their  technical  characteristics.  Of  351  students 
in  the  senior  class  of  the  college,  only  88  were  not  in 
such  a  course  or  affiliated  with  the  professional  schools 
of  Law  or  Medicine.  Commenting  upon  these  facts,  Dean 
Birge  raised  the  warning  that  "it  would  be  an  incalcula- 
ble loss,  both  to  education  and  the  state,  if  the  college 
should  come  to  consist  of  a  mere  congeries  of  courses 
for  special  training."  "The  state  needs,"  he  admitted, 
"in  every  profession  not  merely  graduates  provided  with 
knowledge  necessary  for  the  skillful  performance  of 
their  duties,  but  also,  and  even  more,  graduates  who 
have  some  portion  of  the  esprit  de  corps  of  the  profes- 
sion into  which  they  are  going.  But,"  he  continued, 
"it  is  necessary  to  remember  that  liberal  education  also 
has  a  spirit  and  temper  of  its  own  and  that  the  cultiva- 
tion of  this  spirit  is  the  peculiar  and  highest  function 
of  a  college  of  liberal  arts  and  is  its  especial  contribu- 
tion to  education  and  to  the  community.  It  must  also 
be  remembered  that  this  spirit  cannot  be  fully  realized 
by  those  who  are  seeking  technical  ends  any  more  than 
the  spirit  of  professional  training  can  be  fully  realized 
by  those  who  are  seeking  liberal  culture.  .  .  .  The 
only  justification  of  the  existence  of  a  college  of  liberal 
arts  is  faith  in  the  intellectual  life  as  an  end  in  itself, 
and  the  primary  mission  of  the  college  to  the  community 
is  the  fostering  and  strengthening  of  the  intellectual 


384  WISCONSIN 

life  in  its  students,  and  so  in  the  community.  Nothing 
which  seriously  affects  this  service,  however  good  it  may 
be  in  itself,  can  be  patiently  accepted. ' ' 

Since  these  words  were  written  and  before  the  prob- 
lem which  they  were  contemplating  could  be  solved,  the 
service  of  the  university  to  the  state  has  been  inter- 
rupted by  its  service  to  the  nation.  We  cannot  now 
enter  upon  that  story;  it  must  suffice  for  the  present 
to  state  that  the  university  has  no  cause  to  be  ashamed 
of  the  service  that  it  rendered  and  that  its  sons  ren- 
dered,— none  greater  than  that  of  the  strong  and  de- 
voted leader  whose  life  went  out  in  the  midst  of  the 
rejoicings  of  victory  and  just  as  he  was  bending  his 
force  to  the  tasks  of  peace. 

And  now,  in  these  post-war  days  of  doubtful  peace 
and  possibly  of  cynical  revulsion,  the  university  con- 
fronts once  more  the  problem  of  what  gift  of  knowledge 
it  can  best  bring  to  the  people  of  the  commonwealth, 
and  how.  It  is  perhaps  no  portion  of  the  historian's 
task  to  moralize  or  to  solve  the  problems  of  the  future ; 
but  he  would  hardly  have  finished  his  part  if  he  failed 
to  point  out  what  recent  events  have  shown:  that  no 
knowledge  of  the  brute  processes  of  life  can  suffice  for 
the  guidance  of  a  people  who  have  lost  their  way  among 
spiritual  ideas, — a  lesson  for  educators. 

Whatever  be  the  solution  which  the  university  shall 
make  of  the  problem  which  confronts  it  as  it  enters  upon 
a  new  and,  let  us  hope,  an  even  greater  era,  may  it 
not  make  the  fatal  mistake  of  leaving  its  people,  as  it 
too  often  finds  them,  pitifully  helpless  in  the  presence 
of  ideas.  Speaking  in  a  broad  way,  this  helplessness 
may  be  partly  overcome  by  an  acquaintance  with  those 
disinterested  studies  which,  in  the  words  of  a  great 
French  scholar,  "pursued  in  the  same  spirit  in  all  civi- 


UNDER  VAN  HISE  385 

lized  countries,  form — above  restricted,  and  too  often 
hostile  nationalities — a  grande  patrie  which  is  stained 
by  no  war,  menaced  by  no  conqueror,  and  where  our 
souls  find  the  rest  and  communion  which  was  given 
them  in  other  days  by  the  City  of  God."  And  not  rest 
only,  but  guidance ! 


APPENDICES 


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niiR jjt\      °  *"i  cc-  "1  *°  "3.  ^  °-  "?.  °l  "?, '~  °i  ^  "?.  ^ °-  ^ 

puBJ,j     jj  of  of  m"  n  m  m  *  *"  *  e  10  o  c  n"  n  k  ©~ 

OOlrtM-HOOOMoO-HOOJOOOClONN 
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APPENDIX  B 

BUILDINGS  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN 

Date        Building  Cubic  Ft.      Cost  of      Cts. 

Gross  Const.       per 

Cu.  Ft. 
1851     North  Hall    331,655         20,000         6. 


1855     South  Hall    331,650        21,000         6.4 

1855     Hse.  of  Director  of  Astronomy      110,000  5,000         4.5 


Total   441,650         26,000 


1857     University  Hall    682,500         63,200         9.3 

1871     Chadbourne  Hall    454,950       135,000       17.4 

(Women's  Dormitory) 


1875     Old  Science  Hall   1,452,306       120,000         8.2 

(Burned  1884) 


1878  Washburn  Observatory  236,250 

1879  Music  Hall    780,000 

(Formerly  University  Library ) 


1880     President's  House 130,378 

1880     Student  Observatory   7,980 


Total   138,358 


1887     Chem.  Eng.  Bldg 450,000 

(Old  Chemistry  Bldg.) 
1887     Mining  Engineering  Lab 245,700 

(Old  Heating  Station) 
1887     Engineering  Laboratory 865,125 


Total   1,560,825 


1888     Science  Hall    1,751,310 


1892     Dairy  Building 300,000 

(Hiram  Smith  Hall) 


42,000 

17.7 

40,000 

5.1 

12,000 
800 

9.2 

10. 

12,800 

65,000 

14.4 

25,000 

10.2 

45,000 

5.2 

135,000 

285,000 

16.3 

40,000 

13.3 

1893     Law  Building  401,625         87,000      21.6 

391 


392  APPENDICES 

Date        Building  Cubic  Ft.  Cost  of  Cts. 

Gross  Const.  per 
Cu.  Ft. 

1894     Soils  Physics  123,750  18,500  15. 

(Old  Horticultural  Hall) 

1894     Greenhouse     37,500  6,000  16. 

1894     Gymnasium  and  Armory 1,640,500  130,000         7.8 

Total  1,801,750  154,500 

1896     Pump  House   14,375  2,000  14. 

1896     Addn.  to  Chadbourne    320,310  65,774  17.4 

1896     Addn.   to   Soils  Physics  Bldg.  123,750  18,500  15. 

1896  Grandstand   277,760  4,500         1.6 

Total   736,195  90,774 

1897  Hse.  Dean  Agric 92,400  10,000  10.8 

1897     Dairy  Barn   603,900  20,000         3.3 

Total   696,300  30,000 

1900     Farm  Dormitory    51,600  2,400         4.6 

1900     Hse.   Farm  Supt 50,400  2,400         4.7 

1900     Horse  Barn    301,600  12,000         4. 

1900     South  Wing  Univ.  Hall 518,320  65,000  12.5 

1900  State  Hist.  Library 1,410,000  750,000  53.1 

Total   2,331,920  831,800 

1901  Ag.  Heating  Station   162,500  37,000  16. 

1901  Engineering  Bldg 746,144  100,000  13.4 

Total  908,644  137,000 

1902  Agri.  Hall  and  Auditorium...  1,041,000  150,000  14.8 

1903  Tank  House 49,920  3,000         6. 

1903     Hog   Barn    150,000  6,000         4. 

1903     Boat  House  236,250  5,000        2.1 

Total   436,170  14,000 

1905  Chemistry  Bldg 1,420,400  116,000         8.2 

1906  Agronomy  Bldg 193,536  27,760  14.3 

1906     North  Wing  Univ.  Hall 518,320  74,200  14.3 

1906     Hvdraulic  Laboratory 211,680  28,400  13.5 

1906     Agric.  Eng.  Building 345,000  41,640  12. 

1906     Administration   Bldg 93,450  17,000  18. 

Total  1,361,986  189,000 


APPENDICES  393 

1907  Tobacco  Barn    36,000  1,000         2.8 

1908  Tunnels     93,840 

1908     Stock  Pavilion    1,260,000  75,000         6.5 

1908     Cen    Heating  Station   1,011,500  105,000       10.3 

Conveyors,  Boilers,  etc 110,400 

Total  2,271,500  384,240 

Dairy  Laboratory 144,377  20,000       11. 

Lathrop   Hall    1,476,000  190,000       13. 

(Women's  Gymnasium) 

Litter  Shed    58,320  1,426         2.4 

Forest  Prod.  Laboratory   573,600  50,000         8.5 

Lincoln  Statue  Base  492  1,500       30.5 

Total   2,252,789"  262,926 

Horticultural  Bldg 325,632  50,000       15.4 

Horticultural  Greenhouse  and 

Potting   House    169,464  17,500       10.1 

Poultrv  House    50,400  4,500         8.9 

Hill  Farm  Barn   72,000  5,000         6.9 

Wagon   Shed    54,198  1,500         2.8 

Sheep  Barn    100,100  5,377         5.3 

Crematory    17,100  2,000       11.7 

(Now  Serum  Laboratory) 

Implement  Shed   45,198  929         2. 

Engineering  Wing   277,038  37,683       13.6 

Gas    Prod    Laboratory   24,780  2,000         8. 

Biologv  Bldg.  and  Auditorium  1,198,450  200,000       16.7 

Cornelius  House   47,600  3,000         6.4 

(Alumni  Headquarters) 

Total   2,381,960  329,489 

1911     Gymnasium  Annex    309,112  15,000        4.85 

1911  Service  Building    297,375  25,000         8.4 

Total   606,487  40,000 

1912  Addn.  to  Hort.  Greenhouse...  1,700 
1912     Electric  Light  Plant   20,200 

(In  Central  Heating  Station) 

1912     West  Wing  Chemistry  Bldg...  545,232  72.150       13.2 

L912     Clinical  Bldg    (Old  Part) 59,120  12.900 

1912     Clinical  Bldg    (New  Part)...  61,200  12.100       19  8 

1912     Barnard   Hall    647,683  123,500       19  07 

(Women's  Dormitorv) 
1912     Home.     Ee.     and     Univ.     Ext. 

Building     746,232  119,000       15.9 


394  APPENDICES 

Date        Building  Cubic  Ft. 

Gross 

1912  N.  W.  Wing  State  Historical 

Library     281,580 

Total   2,341,047 

1913  Agr    Chemistry  Bldg 658,249 

1913     Serum  Laboratory   44,576 

1913     Hog   Barn    50,000 

1913     Applied  Arts  Laboratory   .... 

(Olin   Barn)     (For   Addn.   see 
page  7 ) 

1913     Central  Kitchen    102,930 

1913     Wis    High   School    899,828 

1913  Addn.  to  Agric.  Library 29,203 

Total   1,784,786 

1914  Hog   Barn    24,480 

1915  Exper   Breeding  Barn   60,684 

1915     Hog  Cholera  Serum  Plant 36,864 

1915     Reservoir  at  Hydraulic  Labo- 
ratory      42,474 

1915     Automobile  Shelter    8,640 

1915  Applied  Arts  Laboratory  ....  4,334 

Total   152,996 

1916  Physics  Building    1,323,012 

(Also  Commerce  and  Econom- 
ics ) 

1916     Soils  Physics  Building   333,843 

1916     Completion  of  base  of  Lincoln 

Statue     22,123 

1919     Bradley  Memo 264,070 

1919     Infirmary   261,170 


Cost  of 
Const. 

Cts. 

per 

Cu.  Ft. 

61,260 

21.8 

422,810 

83,363 
2,083 
3,882 
1,000 

12.66 
46 

7.7 

13,710 

118,298 
5,462 

1333 

13.15 
18.7 

227,798 

1,638 

6.6 

3,000    5. 
4.810   13. 
(Inc.  Equip.) 

5,200 

600 

3,500 

12.25 
58 
8.0 

17,110 

180,775 

13.3 

49,249 

15.9 

9,000 

40.7 

69.990 
69,455 

26.1 
266 

INDEX 


INDEX 

(Prepared  by  Dr.  Louise  P.  Kellogg,  W.H.S.) 


Abbot,  C.  E.,  football  hero,  314 

Abbott,  Chauncey,  regent,  116 

Academic  freedom,  regents'  pro- 
nouncement on,  292-293 

Accredited  schools,  system  be- 
gun, 206,  224 

Adams,  Charles  Kendall,  presi- 
dent, 244;  relations  to  fac- 
ulty, 237-238;  to  students' 
activities,  308;  to  the  state, 
343;  administration,  252-256, 
266,  268,  270,  273,  280,  286, 
289,  295,  299,  303-304 ;  builds 
library,  300-301 ;  writings, 
247,  293  note;  resignation, 
255,  304;  legacy,  304-305; 
biographical  sketch,  246-250. 

Adams,  Mrs.  Charles  K.,  hos- 
pitality, 303-304 ;  legacy,  305. 

Administration  Building  re- 
modeled, 372 

Aegis,  college  paper,  318-320 

Agriculture,  in  the  state,  57, 
110,  242,  278;  first  profes- 
sors of,  175,  178-179,  233-234 

Agriculture,  College  of,  estab- 
lished, 58,  77,  100-101,  104, 
110,  113,  163,  166,  234;  farm 
for,  178-181,  371;  professors, 
272-273;  few  students  in, 
181-183,  271;  expansion  of, 
255-256,  279-281,  346,  357, 
378-379,  382;  reconstituted, 
259,  271-2S0;  dean  of,  259, 
272,  285;  attempted  to  re- 
move, 280. 

Agriculture,  short  course,  255, 
271,  276;  history  of,  277 

Agricultural  Bacteriology,  chair 
of,  273-274 

Agricultural  Chemistry,  chair 
of,  235,  272-274 

397 


Agricultural  Chemistry  Build- 
ing erected,  373 

Agricultural  colleges,  movement 
for,  37  note,  271;  land  grant 
for,  58-59,  161-163,  167,  183 

Agricultural  Engineering  Build- 
ing, erected,  371 

Agricultural  Experiment  Sta- 
tion, founded,  234;  affiliated, 
259;  progress,  272,  274-275; 
publications,  273,  275,  276. 

Agricultural  Hall,  built,  279, 
302;  style  of  architecture, 
371 

Agricultural  Phvsics,  chair  of, 
273 

Agronomy  Building,  erected, 
371 

Ahara,  Edwin,  football  hero, 
313 

Alexander  Walter,  football 
hero,  313 

Alien  clause,  in  state  constitu- 
tion, 11,  22 

Aliens.     See  Europeans. 

Allen,  Charles  H.,  professor, 
151,  157 

Allen,  Katharine,  assistant  pro- 
fessor of  Latin,  284 

Allen,  Philip,  author,  319 

Allen,  Thomas  S ,  secretary  of 
state,  159,  161 

Allen,  W.  F,  elected  professor, 
174;  influence,  185,  288; 
Place  of  the  Northwest  in 
History,  21   note,  288. 

Allen,  W.  H.,  survey  of  Uni- 
versity, 366-3G7 

Alumni,  in  Civil  War,  148- 
150 

Alumni  Association,  organized, 
156 


398 


INDEX 


Alumni     Magazine,     published, 

318 
Amherst   Agricultural    College, 
172 

Anatomv  and  Entomology,  chair 

of,   175 
Ancient    Languages,    chair    of, 
102,    117-118,    120,   132,   174; 
courses  in,  129-130.    See  also 
Greek  and  Latin. 

Anderson,  Rasmus  B.,  profes- 
sor, 233 

Angell,  James  B.,  president  of 
Michigan,  326-327 ;  Jubilee 
address,  361 

Animal  husbandry,  chair  of, 
273;  methods,  276 

Antioch   College,   president,   43 

Arkansas,  population  growth, 
3  note 

Appropriations,  first  legislative, 
49,  56,  168-169,  207;  in- 
creased, 355-356,  368;  re- 
duced, 366,  368-370,  374; 
mill  tax,  345,  368-370;  for 
new  buildings,  210,  216,  249- 
250,  279,  300,  345,  368,  374; 
for  College  of  Engineering, 
267,  270;  for  University  Ex- 
tension, 368,  370,  382. 

Architectural  plan,  for  univer- 
sity, 372 

Armory,     See  Gymnasium 

Armsby,  Henry  P.,  professor, 
234 

Art  Gallery,  in  first  Science 
Hall,  211 

Ashmore,  George  W.,  killed  in 
Civil  War,  150 

Assemblv  (Library)  Hall, 
built,  *210,  213-214;  incident 
at,  240 

Astronomical  observatory,  gift 
of,  210,  212-213 

Astronomv,  chair  of,  104,  175, 
212,  232 

Athenae  Literary  Society,  317 

Athletics,  in  early  days,  138- 
139;  growth  of,  254-255;  in- 
terest in,  257;  facilities  for, 
301;  intercollegiate,  309-317; 


effects   of,   317-318,   329-330; 

faculty  control  of,  325-329 
Attendance,    diminished    by    fi- 
nancial   stringency,    252-253 ; 

increased,  255,  346,  355,  369- 

370,  374-375 
Auburn   Theological    Seminary, 

Bascom  at,  196 
Aylward,  John  A.,   captain  of 

football  team,  312 

B 

Babcook,  Stephen  W.,  pro- 
fessor, 235;  comes  to  Wis- 
consin, 272-273 ;  discovers 
curd  test,  274;  invents  milk 
test,  274-275,  277 
Baccalaureate  address,  during 
interregnum,  157;  of  1877, 
222  note;  of  1876,  309-310; 
of  Jubilee,  360 
Bacteriology.     See  Agricultural 

Bacteriology 
x.   Iger,     college     paper,    318; 
junior    annual,    318-319,    322 
Ball,  Capt.  F.  Q.,  in  Civil  War, 

148 
Bannister,  John,  regent,  83 
Baptist  church,  at  Madison,  69 
Barber,   Hiram,    regent,    83 
Barnard,  Henry,  educator,  43; 
declines  presidency  of  Michi- 
gan,   48,    119;    elected   chan- 
cellor,   117;    administration, 
118-120;     age,    134;     salary, 
155 
Barnard   Hall,   built,   373 
Barnes,    Charles    R.,    professor 

of  Botany,  281 
Barron,  Henry  D.,  regent,   165 
Barstow,     William,     governor, 

92-93 
Bascom,  Florence,  alumna,  284 
Bascom,  John,  president,  38 
note,  168,  174,  183,  186-187, 
271;  relation  to  regents,  218, 
220-221,  238;  to  faculty,  235- 
236;  to  coeducation,  189-190, 
226;  to  students'  activities, 
228,  307;  personal  influence, 
229-232,  332-333;  resignation, 


INDEX 


399 


238;  New  England  tradition, 
251;  absent  from  Jubilee, 
360;  writings,  197-199;  bac- 
calaureate, 309-310;  farewell 
report,  258;  citations  from, 
236-237,  354,  356;  character- 
ized, 191-202 

Baseball,  intercollegiate,  309- 
311 

Bashford,  James  W.,  college 
editor,  318 

Bashford,  R.  M.,  professor  of 
Law,  266,  325 

Beet  sugar  industry,  promoted, 
276 

Belmont,  first  Wisconsin  capi- 
tal, 63,  65 

Beloit  College,  lends  apparatus, 
102,  133;  rivalry  with,  111, 
140;  graduate  of,  244;  pro- 
fessor at,  245;  Greek  Letter 
Societies  at,  307;  intercol- 
legiate games  with,  309-310 

Bennett,  Alden  I.,  attacks  the 
University,  110-111 

Berlin  University,  graduate,  12, 
164 

Beta  Theta  Pi,  organized,  306; 
reorganized,  308 ;  chapter 
house,  308 

Biology,  chair  of,  283 

Biology  Building,  erected.  373 

Birge,  Edward  A.,  professor, 
233,  281,  283,  298;  dean,  259, 
328,  382;  acting  president, 
244,  255,  269;  long  service, 
265;  cited,  229-230,  237,  248, 
269,  299,  332  note,  345-347, 
355,  380,  382-384 

Black  Hawk  War,  and  Wiscon- 
sin settlement,  2;  veteran  of, 
82 

Bloomington  (Ind.),  state  uni- 
versity at,  40 

Board  of  Education,  organized, 
68 

Board  of  Public  Affairs,  cre- 
ated, 363;  undertakes  sur- 
vey of  universitv,  366 

Boat  House,  built,'  301 

Booth,  Levi,  first  graduate,  30 


Botany,  chair  of,  233,  234 

Botkin,  Sinclair  W.,  student, 
139;  in  the  Civil  War,  148 

Bowdoin  College  graduate,  82, 
134 

Bradford,  Capt.  H.  C,  in  Con- 
federate army,  148 

Bradley,  Capt.  M.  L.,  in  Civil 
War,    148 

Bradley  Memorial  Hospital, 
erected,  373 

Braley,  Berton,  author,  319 

Brewer,  C.  L.,  football  hero, 
314 

Bridge  and  Hydraulic  Engi- 
neering, chair"of,  263,  268 

Brithingham,  Thomas  E.,  donor 
of  Lincoln  statue,  374 

Brown,  William  West,  agricul- 
tural graduate,  181 

Bruce,  A.  A.,  professor  of  Law, 
266;  resigns,  267;  dean  at 
North  Dakota,  285;  football 
player,  312 

Bryan,  Henry,  regent,  85,  87 

Bryant,  Gen.  E.  E.,  dean  of  Col- 
lege of  Law,  259;  resignation 
and  death,  267 

Bryant,  Capt.  George  E.,  in 
Civil  War,  145 

Bryce,  James,  cited,  349 

Buchanan,  James,  vetoes  land 
grant,  58 

Buckingham,  James  S.,  visits 
the  United  States,  7 

Bugh,   Jacob   S.,  regent,   165 

Bull,  James  M.,  enlists,  146; 
promotions,  149 

Bull,  Ole,  concert  at  Madison, 
69 

Bull,  Storm,  instructor,  233; 
professor,   268 

Bullock,    C.    J.,   professor,    295 

Bunge,  G.  W.,  football  hero, 
313 

Burdick,  Elisha,  early  Madi- 
sonian,  72 

Burgess,  Charles  F.,  instructor, 
268 

Butler,  James  Davie,  professor, 
129;  elected,  118;  cited,  121, 


400 


INDEX 


146;  characterized,  132-133; 
retired,  134,  174;  chaplain, 
157 

C 

Cabinet.    See  Museum 

Cairns,  Vvilliam  B.,  professor 
of  English,  285 

Cajori,   Florian,  alumnus,  284 

California,  gold  discovered  in, 
6;  university  fund  attacked, 
39 

California  University,  59; 
growth,  243;  Jubilee  dele- 
gates, 360-361 

Cambridge  University,  Jubilee 
delegates  from,  360 

Cameron,  Agnes,  regent,  165 

Camp  Randall,  during  the 
Civil  War,  144,  147;  acquired 
by  university,  301 ;  athletic 
field,  310;  building  on,  373 

Campus,  purchased,  29,  66,  71- 
73,  93;  natural  beauty,  70- 
71;  laid  out,  74-75;  additions 
to,  371.  See  also  Lower  Cam- 
pus and  Upper  Campus 

Canada,  emigration  from,  9; 
sends  students  to  Michigan, 
49 

Capita  costs,  209 

Capitol,  site,  66;  first  built,  67, 
84 ;  regents  meet  at,  88 ;  Law 
School  quartered  at,  176; 
Historical  Library  in,  294; 
burned,   300 

Cardinal,  college  paper,  318- 
319 

Carlyle,  W.  L.,  professor  of 
Agriculture,  273 

Carnegie  Foundation,  Report, 
354  note 

Carpenter,  J.  H.,  dean  of  Law 
department,  176 

Carpenter,  Stephen  H.,  univer- 
sity tutor,  102;  professor, 
174;  death,  232,  236;  popu- 
larity, 233 

Carr,  Ezra  S.,  professor,  102, 
104,  133-134;  opposes  Lath- 
rop,  115;  a  regent,  116;  re- 
elected,    117;     courses,     129, 


135;  retired,  134;  apparatus 
for,  136 

Carroll  College,  founded,  86 

Cary,  Lucien,  dramatic  author, 
321 

Case,  C.  C,  rowing  enthusiast, 
315 

Catfish  (Yahara)  River,  at 
Madison,  64;  mills  on,  67 

Catlin,  John,  secretary  of 
Board  of  Visitors,  71-72 

Central  Heating  Plant,  erected, 
373 

Chadbourne,  Paul  A.,  president, 
134,  170-171,  187;  adminis- 
tration, 153,  179;  departure, 
186;  recommends  Bascom, 
192-193;  at  Williams,  186, 
236;   characterized,   171-174 

Chadbourne  Hall,  built,  169; 
dedicated,  189;  a  dormitory, 
209;  improved,  214,  227;  re- 
built, 301 

Chamberlin,  Thomas  C,  presi- 
dent, 238-239;  administra- 
tion, 250-252,  266,  268,  272, 
281,  283,  285,  287,  289,  294, 
333 ;  relation  to  faculty,  258- 
265,  275,  284-285;  resigns, 
332;  Jubilee  address,  361, 
377;  cited,  281-282,  335-336; 
biographical    sketch,    244-246 

Chapter  Houses.  See  Greek 
Letter  Societies. 

Cheese,  new  method  of  cur- 
ing, 274.     See  also  Dairying 

Chemistry,  course  in,  383; 
chairman,  285  See  also  Agri- 
cultural Chemistry. 

Chemistry  and  Natural  His- 
tory, chair  of,  102,  133,  175, 
181,  183;  apparatus  for,  135- 
136 

Chemistry  Building,  erected, 
371;  enlarged,  373 

Cheney,  Lellen  S.,  professor  of 
Botany,  285 

Chicago,  school  superintendent, 
170;  presidents'  conference 
at,  326 

Chicago  Journal,   cited,   69. 


INDEX 


401 


Chicago  University,  founded, 
242;  professors,  23B,  245", 
332;  Jubilee  delegates,  360; 
football  rivalry  with,  312, 
314,  328 
China,  minister  to,  286,  295 
Chi  Psi,  organized,  306 ;  chapter 

house,  308 
Choral  Union,  formed,  304 
Chynoweth,  H.  W.,  regent,  291 
Chynoweth,  Thomas  B.,  regent, 

210 
Civic-Historical    course,   organ- 
ized, 282;  popularity  of,  288. 
See  also  History 
Civil    Engineering,   department 

of,  268 
Civil  War,  and  development  of 
state    universities,    34;    Wis- 
consin     University      during, 
144-157 
City  of  the  Four  Lakes,  site,  28 
Clark,  Julius  T.,  regent,  84-85; 

secretary,  85 
Clark,  Temple,  opposes  univer- 
sity, 110 
Clark    bills    on    university    re- 
organization, 112,  115 
Clarke,   Dr.  E.  H.,  attacks  co- 
education, 226 
Class  of  1854,  first  college,  30, 

47,  102 
Class  of  1857,  members,  148 
Class    of    1S59,    members,    148, 

149 
Class  of  1861,  members,  148 
Class  of  1862,  members,   148 
Class    of    1863,    members,    145, 

148 
Class    of    1864,   members,    145- 

146,  148-150,  169 
Class  of  1869,  women  in,  188 
Class  of  1871,  members,  266 
Class  of  1874,  members,  193 
Class  of  1875,  women  in,  190 
Class  of  1876,  members,  284 
Class  of  1878,  members,  283 
Class    of    1879,   members,    284, 

331,  361 
Class  of   1880,  members,   283 
Class  of  1881,  members,  267 


Class  of  1882,  members,  284 
Class  of   1883,  members,  284 
Class  of  1884,  members,  283-284 
Class    of    1885,   members,    284; 

annual,  318 
Class    of    1888,    members,    273, 

284,   285 
Class    ol    1889,    members,    268, 

285 
Class  of  1890,  Bascom  addresses, 
239;  members,  266,  268,  285 
Class  of  1891,  members,  285 
Class   of    1892,    members,    285- 

286 
Class  of  1893,  members,  315 
Class  of   1895,  members,  319 
Class  of  1896,  members,  319 
Class  of  1910,  gift,  293 
Classical    education,    and    col- 
leges, 112;  course  at  the  uni- 
versity, 128-129,  134-135,  151, 
177,   224-225.     See   also   An- 
cient Languages,  Greek,  and 
Latin 
Clement,  Charles,  state  senator, 
attack  on  university,  108-109 
Cochems,  Edward,  football  hero, 

314 
Cochems,  Henry,  football  hero, 

314 
Coeducation,  provided  for,  113; 
as  a  war  measure,  153  ;  estab- 
lished,    163,    206;     modified, 
171;  growth  of,  187-189,  226- 
227;    and  the   engineers,   271 
Cole,  Judge  Orsamus,  Law  lec- 
turer, 176 
College   Hill,   selected,    66,    72; 
first  building  on.  68.    See  also 
Campus   and    Upper   Campus 
Collins,    Alexander    L.,    regent, 

83 
Columbia     University,     foreign 
professor    at,    10;    school    of 
mines,  185;   changes  in,  242; 
rowing  rival,  315 
Comins,  L.  M.,  killed  in  Civil 

War,  150 
Commencements,  first,  69;  jubi- 
lee of,  359.     See  also  Bacca- 
laureate. 


402 


INDEX 


Commerce,  department  of,  113, 

115,  120 
Commerce,  School  of,  director, 

295 
Commons,  in   early  university, 
76,  127.    See  also  Dormitories 
Comstock,    George    C,    instruc- 
tor, 233;   professor,  281;   di- 
rects the  Jubilee,  359 
Congressional   land   grants   for 
education,  28,  31-33,  36,  75, 
161-162;    wasted,    36-39,    46, 
55,   88-92;    conserved,   44-46; 
increased,      96-97,    *  167-168. 
See  also  Morrill  Act 
Connecticut,  public  schools  of, 

43;  emigrants  from,  84 
Connolly,  P.  H.,  baseball  hero, 

311 
Conover,    Allan    D.,    professor, 
184,   232;    superintendent   of 
construction,     216;      retires, 
268 
Conover,      Obadiah     ML,     pro- 
fessor,     102,      132;      salary, 
103;    opposes    Lathrop,    115; 
dropped,    117;    principal    of 
high   school,   121 ;    character- 
ized, 132 
Conservation,  Van  Hise's  inter- 
est in,  339-341 
Constitutional    Convention    for 
Wisconsin,  2   note,  3;   mem- 
bers, 17,  83,  86 
Contemporary    Review,    article 

in,  358 
Cooper,       James       Fennimore, 
Leather-Stocking  Tales,  popu- 
larity of,  6 
Co-operation  in  university  serv- 
ice,  353-354;    with  the   state 
government,  357-358,  364 
Copenhagen,  minister  to,  297 
Cornell  University,  attacks  on, 
38  note;  land  grant  for,  168 
note;   influence  of,  243,  263; 
president  of,  247.   249;   row- 
ing rival,  314-316 
Coryell,    T.    D.,    professor    of 
Engineering,    118;    officer   of 
Alumni  Association,  156 


Cousin,  Victor,  Report  on  EdAir 

cation;  42-43 
Cover,  J.  C,  regent,  165 
Cowderv,    K.    L.,    professor    of 

French,  285 
Craig,    John    A.,    professor    of 

Agriculture,  273 
Cranberry   industry,   promoted, 

276 
Curd  Test,  invented,  274 
Curtis,    Arthur,    football    hero, 

314 
Curtiss,    Joseph    W.,    killed    in 

Civil  War,  150 

D 

Dairy  Building.  See  Hiram 
Smith  Hall 

Dairving,  growth  of,  205-206; 
instruction  in,  255,  263,  272; 
professorship  of,  273,  285 ;  in- 
ventions for  improvement, 
273-275;  short  course,  276, 
277 

Dale,  H.  B.,  regent,  291 

Dane  County,  Norwegians  in, 
14;  organized,  63;  populated, 
64 ;  provides  agricultural 
farm,    166-167 

Dane  County  Fair  Grounds. 
See  Camp  Randall 

Daniells,  William  W.,  profes- 
sor, 175,  178,  180,  210;  char- 
acterized, 182-183 

Davies,  John  E.,  Professor,  175, 
212;  characterized,  182-183 

Davis,  Parke  H.,  athletic  coach, 
313 

Dawes,  Col.  Rufus  R.,  in  Civil 
War,   149 

Dean,  Nathaniel  W.,  regent,  74, 
84 

Dean  of  Women,  office  created, 
323 

Decker,  John  W.,  discovers  curd 
test,  274;  professor  of  Dairy- 
ing, 285 

Degrees,  granted  by  university, 

346-347,   376 
Delaplaine,    George    P.,    early 
Madisonian,  72 


INDEX 


403 


De     Laval     cream     separator, 

274 
Delaware  Boat  Club,  race  with, 

315 
Delta  Gamma,  organized,  307; 

national  convention,  307 
Delta    Upsilon,    organized,    308 
Dewey,    Nelson,    first   governor 

of    state,    23,    29;    appoints 

regents,  81-83;  veto,  90 
Dickens,     Charles,     visits     the 

United  States,  7 
Dickinson,  H.  F.,  football  hero, 

313 
Discipline,   in   Bascom   regime, 

227-230;     and     self     govern- 
ment, 323-324 
Dixon,  Judge  Luther,  Law  lec- 
turer, 176 
Dodge,     Henry,     governor     of 

Wisconsin      Territory,      28 ; 

refuses     Madison     lots,     65 

note 
Dodson,  Dr.  John  M.,  alumnus, 

283 
Dormitories.      See    South    Hall 

and  North  Hall 
Dormitory   system,   condemned, 

120,  126;  importance  of,  126, 

352;   ended,  215,  306 
Doty,    James    D.,    founder    of 

Madison,  65,  71 
Dramatics,    at   the   University, 

320-321 
Draper,  Lyman  C,  secretary  of 

Wisconsin  Historical  Society, 

69,  289;   regent,  116 
Dudley,   William  H.,  assistant 

librarian,  285 

E 

Economics,  chair  of,  281.  See 
also  Political  Science  and  His- 
tory, School. 

Economics,  Political  Science, 
and  History  Bulletins,  294 

Edgerton  Bible  case,  239 

Education,  clause  in  Ordinance 
of  1787;  in  first  state 
legislature,  80;  professor  of, 
234;  changes  in,  242-243.    See 


also  Normal  department, 
Pedagogy,  and  Teachers 

Edwin  Booth  dramatic  club,  321 

Elective  system  of  studies,  379- 
380 

Electric  Engineering,  chair  of, 
268 

Electro- Chemical  Engineering, 
chair  of,  268-269 

Eliot,  Charles  W.,  visits  Wis- 
consin, 281 

Elms,  of  upper  campus,  planted, 
75 

Ely,  Dr.  Richard  T.,  comes  to 
Wisconsin,  261,  281,  290;  di- 
rector of  school,  287;  reputa- 
tion, 291,  293;  investigation 
of,  291-292;  productiveness, 
294 

Emery,  Annie  Crosby,  dean  of 
women,  323 

Employers'  Liability  Act,  363 

Engineering,  in  early  times, 
104,  113,  115;  courses,  183, 
225;  professors,  118,  233; 
growth  of  department,  255- 
256 

Engineering,  College  of,  organ- 
ized, 259,  267-271 ;  number 
of  students,  268-269;  dean, 
270;  professor,  285 

Engineering  Hall,  built,  302; 
stvle  of  architecture,  371;  en- 
larged, 373 

English  Composition,  reorgan- 
ized, 296 

English  Language  and  Litera- 
ture courses,  225-226,  282; 
professors,  174,  285,  297-298; 
fellowship,  305;  department, 
233.  281 

Erie  Canal,   travel  route,   13 

Esch,  John  J.,  Jubilee  address, 
361 

Ethics,  Civil  Polity,  and  Politi- 
cal Economv,  chair  of,  103, 
117 

Europeans,  immigrate  to  Wis- 
consin, 5-16,  50-51;  influence 
on  education,  53;  children 
enter  university,  205-206.   See 


404 


INDEX 


also  Germans  and  Norwe- 
gians 

Evansville  Academy,  graduate, 
331 

Experiment  Association,  found- 
ed, 278 

Experiment  Station.  See  Agri- 
cultural  Experiment   Station 

Extension.  See  University  Ex- 
tension 

Extension  and  Home  Economics 
Building,  erected,  373 


Faculty,  organized,  77,  102- 
103;  lack  of  harmony  in,  114- 
115;  possibilities  among,  123- 
124;  first  chosen,  131-135; 
residence,  76;  reconstituted, 
170-176;  grades  in,  286-287; 
enlarged,  346;  democracy  of, 
236-238,  264-265;  in  Baseom's 
time,  248,  262-265;  in  Cham- 
berlin's,  257-262;  in  Adams', 
248,  262-265;  in  Van  Hise's, 
351,  353;  of  College  of  Law, 
266-267;  of  College  of  Engi- 
neering, 267-271;  of  College 
of  Agriculture,  272-273;  gives 
expert  service,  364-365 ;  con- 
trols student  activities,  323- 
329 

Fairchild,  Jairus,  early  Madi- 
sonian,  67 

Fairchild,  Gen.  Lucius,  interest 
in  university,  159-161;  signs 
reorganization  act,  163;  ap- 
points regents,  164;  favors 
coeducation,   189 

Fallows,  Bishop  Samuel,  cited, 
122;  in  the  Civil  War,  149; 
state  superintendent,  165; 
elected  professor,  174 

Farmers'  institutes  founded, 
234;  support  of,  208;  prog- 
ress of,  271,  276-277;  Bul- 
letin, 277 

Farrington,  E.  H,  professor 
of  Dairying,  273 

Farwell,  L.  J.,  develops  Madi- 
son, 67;  governor  favors  pri- 


vate interests,  90-91;  gift  to 
University,  136 

Favill,  Dr.  Henry  B.,  alumnus, 
283 

Fellowships,  instructional,  261 ; 
for  graduate  study,  283-284; 
founded  by  Adams,  305 

Female  College.  See  Chad- 
bourne  Hall  and  Normal  De- 
partment 

Feuling,  John  B.,  elected  pro- 
fessor, 175;  death,  232 

Financial  stringency,  effect  on 
university,  252-254 

Fine  Arts,  department  of,  352 

First  Wisconsin  Volunteers,  in 
Civil  War,  160 

Flexner,  Abraham,  citation  fa- 
voring Wisconsin,  354 

Flom,  G.  T.,  Noncegian  Immi- 
gration, cited,   14   note 

Flower,  J.  M.,  officer  of  Alumni 
Association,   156 

Follen,  Carl,  a  German  immi- 
grant, 10 

Football,  intercollegiate,  311- 
317;  reform  of,  326-329;  fi- 
nances, 365 

Foreigners.    See  Europeans 

Forest  Products  Laboratory, 
built,  373 

Fort  Crawford,  road  to,  63 

Fort  Winnebago,  Captain  Mar- 
ryat  at,   7,   63 

"Forward,"  state  motto,  24 

Four  Lakes  region,  in  Wiscon- 
sin, 64 

Fox  Eiver,  of  Illinois,  Nor- 
wegians on,  12,  14 

Fox-Wisconsin  waterway,  de- 
scribed, 1 ;  Captain  Marryat 
visits,  7;  as  a  boundary,  8 

France,  public  education  in,  42- 
43 

Frankenbtirger,  David  B.,  pro- 
fessor, 233,  297,  317 ;  methods, 
298-299,  321 

Franklin,  Col.  Walter  S.,  pro- 
fessor, 184 

Fraternities.  See  Greek  Letter 
Societies 


INDEX 


405 


Freeman,  John  C,  professor, 
233;  methods,  297-298;  diplo- 
mat,  297;    cited,  288 

Freeman,  Mary,  dramatics,  320 

French-Canadians  in  Wiscon- 
sin, 9-10 

French  Language  and  Litera- 
ture, chair  of,  233,  284 

Fuchs,  John  P.,  professor,  102, 
117,  133-134;  retired,  134,  175 

Fuller  Opera  House,  seminary 
at,  294 

G 

Gaze,  Zona,  alumna,  319 

Gamma  Phi  Betta,  organized, 
307;  chapter  house,  308 

Gay,  Lucy  M.,  assistant  pro- 
fessor of  French,  284 

Geology,  professor  of,  245,  331- 
333;   department  of,  284 

Georgia,  educational  mission 
from,  357 

German  Language  and  Litera- 
ture, chair  of,  131,  233;  de- 
partment, 284,  297-299 

Germans,  emigrate  to  America, 
10-11;  to  Wisconsin,  11-12, 
22,  131;  newspapers  for,  20; 
contributions  to  social  wel- 
fare, 26,  359 

Germany,  economic  conditions 
in,  10-11;  educational  influ- 
ence,   42-43,    45,    47-48,    196, 

242,  246-247,  263 

Gillet,  Capt.,  Almerin,  in  Civil 
War,  148 

Gilman,  Daniel  C,  Jubilee  ad- 
dress, 361 

Gilmore,  Eugene  A.,  professor 
of  Law,  267 

Glee  Club,  concerts,  320-321 

Godwin,  Parke,  lectures  at 
Madison,  69 

GofF,  E.  S.,  professor  of  Horti- 
culture, 273 

Gottingen  University,  285 

Governor's  Guards,  volunteer, 
145,  160 

Graduate  studv,  growth  of,  242- 

243,  253,  257-258,   295,   375; 


encouragement  for,  283,  286, 
290-291;  methods  in,  295- 
296.     See  also  Research 

Graduate  School,  dean,  234; 
growth,  376 

Gray,  Alexander  T.,  commis- 
sioner of  school  lands,  91 
note;   secretary  of  state,  108 

Gray,  Hamilton  H.,  regent,  192 

Great  Britain,  emigration  from, 
8-9;  educational  mission, 
357 

Greek,  course  in,  225,  233;  pro- 
fessorship, 263 ;  fellowship, 
305 

Greek  Letter  Societies,  intro- 
duced, 228;  growth  of,  306- 
309;   rushing,  323 

Greelev,  Horace,  lectures  at 
Madison,  69-70 

Green  Bay,  English  traveler 
visits,  7,  63;  land  office  at, 
65 

Gregory,  Charles  Noble,  pro- 
fessor of  Law,  266;  resigns, 
267 

Gregory,  J.  C,  regent,  220 

Grinnell  College,  student  from, 
313 

Group  svstem  of  studies,  282- 
283 

Gymnasium,  building  for,  301 ; 
enlarged,  373 

H 
Hadley,  Jackson,  regent,  165 
Hall,  Capt.  S.  A.,  in  Civil  War, 

148 
Hamilton,  Charles  S.,  president 

of  regents,  165 
Haresfoot  dramatic  club,  321 
Harvard     University,     foreign 
professor  at,  10;  changes  in, 
224;    instructors    from,   263; 
president,    2S1,    349;    secures 
professors     from     Wisconsin, 
295;   influence  of,  296;   Jubi- 
lee delegates,  360 
Haskell,   T.   H,   professor,    174 
Haskins,    Charles    Homer,    pro- 
fessor of  History,  281,  289; 


406 


INDEX 


at  Johns  Hopkins,  290;  goes 
to  Harvard,  295 

Hatch  Act,  provides  for  experi- 
ment station,  272 

Hazing,  in  early  days,  227-228. 
See  also  Student  Court 

Hebrew,  chair  of,  284 

Hendrickson,  George  L.,  pro- 
fessor of  Latin,  281 

Henry,  William  A.,  professor 
of  Agriculture,  229,  233-234, 
271;  dean,  259,  272,  275;  call 
to  New  York,  280;  cited,  180, 
275,  277-278;  Feed  and  Feed- 
ing, 273 

Heritage,  Lucius,  instructor, 
233;  death,  235-236  _ 

Hesperia  Literary  Society,  317 

Hickok,  L.  P,  Bascom's  in- 
structor, 196 

High,  James  L.,  student,  146, 
148;  cited,  150 

Hill,  George,  B.,  dramatic  au- 
thor, 321 

Hinckley,  B.  R.,  regent,  165 

Hiram  Smith  Hall,  for  Dairy- 
ing, 277,  279 ;  enlarged,  373 

History,  professor  of,  185,  246, 
281,  284,  288;  creative  work 
in,  288,  357;  school  of,  295; 
fellowship  for,  305.  See  also 
Political  Science  and  History. 

History  Club,  formed,  288 

Hobart,  H.  C,  regent,  165 

Holden,  Edward  S ,  professor 
of  Astronomy,  232;  resigns, 
235 

Home  Economics,  attached  to 
College  of  Agriculture,  383. 
See  also  Extension  and  Home 
Economics   Building 

Hopkins,  Mark,  successor,  172, 
192;    influence,   196,   229 

Horticulture,  chair  of,  273, 
methods  in,  276 

Horticultural  Building,  erected, 
373 

Horticultural-Physics  Building, 
erected,  279 

Hoskins,  L.  M,  professor  of 
Mechanics,  268,  284 


Howe,  Frederick  C.,  Wiscon- 
sin,  An  Experiment  in 
Democracy,  358 

Hubbard,  Frank  G.,  professor 
of  English,  281,  296 

Hubbell,  Major  R.  W.  in  Civil 
War,    149;    poem,    156 

Hudson  River,  regatta  on,  315, 
317 

Heubschmann,  Dr.  Franz,  at 
Milwaukee,  11 

Hungerford,  E.  C,  killed  in 
the  Civil  war,  150 

Hydraulic  Engineering.  See 
Bridge  and  Hydraulic  En- 
gineering 

Hydraulics  Laboratory ,  built, 
371 

I 

Illinois,  and  Wisconsin 
boundary,  1-2;  emigration 
from,  5;  Germans  in,  11; 
Norwegians,  12-13;  univer- 
sity land  dissipated,  40; 
sends  students  to  Michigan, 
49 

Illinois  Normal  University,  40; 
land  grant  for,  58 

Illinois  University,  founded, 
295 

Immigration  to  Wisconsin,  3- 
15;  incitements  to,  4-7,  10-11, 
13,  15-16,  55,  206 

Income  Tax,  adopted,   363 

Indiana,  population  growth,  3 
note;  Germans  in,  11;  sends 
students  to  Michigan,  9 

Indiana  Agricultural  College, 
founded,  59 

Indiana  University,  founded,  40 

Indians,  treaties  with,  2,  8 

Industrial  Commission,  created, 
363 

Industrial  Education.  See 
Technical  Education 

Infirmary,  erected,  373 

Institutes.  See  Farmers'  Insti- 
tutes and  Teachers'  Insti- 
tutes 

Interstate  Commerce  Commis- 
sion, member,  295 


INDEX 


407 


Iowa,  population  growth,  3 
note;  Germans  in,  11;  il- 
literates, 20 ;  appropriations 
for  education,  37  note 

Iowa  College  of  Agriculture, 
founded,  59 

Iowa  University,  founded,  41 

Irish,  emigrate  to  America,  8- 
9;   in  Wisconsin,  9,  22 

Iron  ores,  deposits  of,  335-337 

Irving,  Roland  D  ,  professor  of 
Geology,  175-176,  183,  210, 
281,  335;  influence,  185,  332; 
death,  235-236,  335 

Isham,  — ,  died  in  the  Civil 
War,  150 


Jackson,  D.  C,  professor  of 
Electric  Engineering,  268 

James,  James  A.,  professor  of 
History,  285 

Janesville,  regent  from,  81 ; 
rival  of  Madison,  111 

Janesville  Gazette,  cited,  111. 

Jastrow,  Joseph,  professor  of 
Psychology,  281 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  plans  for  a 
university,  34 

Jena  University,  graduate,  11 

Jesse,  Richard  H.,  Jubilee  ad- 
dress, 361 

Johns  Hopkins  Universitv.  in- 
fluence of,  242,,  263,  "  281 ; 
graduate  students  at  284; 
professors  from,  289,  290; 
Jubilee  delegate,  361 

Johnson,  Emery  R.,  professor 
of  Transportation,  285 

Johnson,  J.  B.,  dean  of  College 
of  Engineering,  270 

Johnston,  John,  establishes  fel- 
lowship, 283;   regent,  291 

Joint  Debates,  importance  of, 
289-290,  317-318 

Jones,  Burr  W.,  professor  of 
Law,  266 

Jones,  David  W.,  regent,  116 


Jones,  Edward  D.,  professor  at 
Michigan,  295 

Jones,  Forest  R.,  professor  of 
Engineering,  268 

Journalism,  course  in,  333.  See 
also  Press 

Jubilee  celebration,  of  the  uni- 
versity, 330,  359-362;  medal 
struck,  347;  purpose  of,  357, 
377 

Juneau,  Solomon,  founder  of 
Milwaukee,   9 

Juneau,  W.  J.,  football  hero, 
314 

Junior  college  system,  in  Michi- 
gan, 45;  in  Wisconsin,  45 
note 

K 

Kahlenbebg,  Louis,  professor 
of  Chemistry,  285 

Kansas  University,  founded, 
59;  Jubilee  delegates,  360. 

Kappa  Kappa  Gamma,  organ- 
ized, 306 

Karel,  J.  C,  football  hero,  313- 
314 

Keenan,  Matthew,  regent,  210 

Kelly,  Frederick  T.,  professor  of 
Hebrew,   285 

Kentucky,  university  idea  in, 
35 

Keves,  Elisha  W.,  regent,  217, 
219,  238;  speech,  240 

Kilbourn,  Byron,  railroad  presi- 
dent, 91  note 

King,  F  H  ,  professor  of  Agri- 
culture, 273 

King,  Phil.,  athletic  coach,  313- 
314 

King,  Rufus,  Milwaukee  editor, 
29  note;  regent,  82-83,  88 

Kinley,  David,  professor,  295 

Know-nothing  party,  and  for- 
eign element,  22 

Koshkonong  Lake,  head  of 
navigation,  64 

Koshkonong  settlement,  in  Dane 
County,   14 

Kraenzlein,  Alvin,  athlete, 
316 


408 


INDEX 


Kremers,  Edward,  professor  of 
Pharmacy,  2©4;  director  of 
school,  285 

Kull,  F  ,  football  hero,  313 

Kursteiner,  Auguste,  professor, 
115,  129,  133-134;  dropped, 
117 

L 

Laboratories,  apparatus  for, 
102,  133,  269-270;  work  in, 
281.  See  also  the  several 
sciences 

La  Crosse  and  Milwaukee  Rail- 
road, lobby,  91  note 

Ladies'  Hall.  See  Chadbourne 
Hall 

LaFollette,  Gov.  Robert  M., 
Jubilee  address,  361 ;  pro- 
gressive program,  362-364 

La  Grange,  Col.  Oscar  H.,  in  the 
Civil  War,  149 

Laird  and  Cret,  architects,  372 

Lands.  See  Congressional  land 
grants 

Lapham,  Increase  A.,  natural- 
ist, 85  note,  211 

Larkin,  Major  C.  P.,  in  the 
Civil  War,  149 

Larsen,  "  Norsky,"  football 
hero,  314 

Lathrop,  John  H.,  chosen  chan- 
cellor, 29,  41,  48;  age,  134; 
president  of  Missouri,  41 ;  in- 
auguration, 30,  75,  82,  87,  89; 
salary,  94,  103,  155;  ideals, 
100-101,  105,  123-124,  140; 
administration.  73-74,  87, 
102-103,  107,  126,  141;  guest, 
157;  opposition  to,  114-117, 
121 ;  leaves  Wisconsin,  107, 
117-118;  characterized,  121- 
122 

Lathrop,  S.  P.,  professor  of 
Chemistry,   102,   133 

Lathrop  Hall,  built,  372-373 

Latin,  professor  of,  185,  233, 
281,   284 

Law,  department  for,  77 ;  pro- 
vided, 100,  104,  113;  inau- 
gurated, i76;  course  length- 
ened, 206;  class,  239 


Law  Building,  occupied,  266, 
302 

Law,  College  of,  organized,  256, 
259,  265-267;  dean  of,  259, 
267;  professors,  261,  266-267; 
affiliated  students,  383. 

Lead  mines,  of  southwest  Wis- 
consin, 2  note,  4;  road  to, 
63 

Leahy,  Capt.  M.  A.,  in  Civil 
War,  148 

Legislative  Reference  Library, 
work   of,   363-364 

Legislature.  See  Wisconsin  and 
Appropriations 

Leipsic,  University  of,  284 

Leith,  Charles  K.,  joint  author, 
337 

Leland  Stanford  University,  se- 
cures professors,  268,  285 

Letters  and  Science,  College  of, 
proportionate  growth,  255- 
256;  reconstituted,  259;  re- 
quirements for  entrance,  266; 
development   of,   280-283 

Lewis,  James  T,  governor,  159; 
gift  to  university,  160,  190 

Libby,  Orin  G.,  professor  of 
History,   286 

Liberal  Arts  department,  pro- 
vided for,  100;  becomes  a  col- 
lege, 163,  177.  See  also  Let- 
ters and  Science 

Libraries,  in  early  Wisconsin, 
20,  106;  at  Madison,  69.  See 
also  Wisconsin  Historical  So- 
ciety 

Library  of  University,  137,  166, 
209,  357;  building  for,  289, 
299-301,  368,  373;  legacy  for, 
305 

Library  Hall.  See  Assembly 
Hall 

Library  Science,  course  in, 
383 

Lick  Observatory,  director,  235 

Lieber,  Francis,  a  German  im- 
migrant, 10 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  statue,  374 

Literary  Societies,  influence  of, 
289,  307,  317 


INDEX 


409 


Longfellow,  H.  W„  poem  on 
Madison's  lakes,  70 

Logic,  Rhetoric,  and  English 
Literature,  chair  of,  174 

London  University,  Jubilee  dele- 
gates from,  360 

Lowell,  James  R.,  lectures  at 
Madison,  69,  70  note 

Lowell,  Lawrence  A.,  inaugu- 
ration, 349 

Lowell  Institute,  lecturer,  171, 
197 

Lower  campus,  plotted,  73;  li- 
brary built  on,  300-301 ;  pur- 
chased, 310;  athletic  field, 
312-313 

Ludington,  ,  land  specula- 
tor, 91  note 

Lumber.    See  Pineries 

Lund,  "  Jimmie,"  baseball  hero, 
311 

Lyceum,  at  Madison,  69 

Lyman,  T.  U.,  football  hero, 
313 

M 

McCabthy,  Charles,  legislative 
reference  librarian,  364;  The 
Wisconsin  Idea,  358 

McClure,  Floyd,  verses,  320 

McCoy,  Robert  B.,  baseball 
hero,  311 

McCully,  James,  baseball  hero, 
311 

McGovern,  Gov.  Francis  E., 
alumnus,  366 

McGill  University,  principal, 
361 

Machine  design,  chair  of,  268 

Machine  shops,  enlarged,  270 

Mack,  J.  G.  D.,  professor  of 
Engineering,  268 

McKerrow,  George,  superinten- 
dent of  farmers'  institutes, 
276 

McMynn,  John  M.,  regent,  116, 
165 

McNair,  Fred  W.,  president  of 
Michigan  College  of  Mines, 
285 

Madison,  site,  63-64;  territorial 
capital,  28,  65,  126;  founded, 


63-68;  university  located  at, 
29,  63,  111;  during  the  Civil 
War,  144-145;  student  life 
in,  306 

Madison  Guards,  volunteer, 
145 

Madison  Express,  editor,  84 

Madison  State  Journal,  239 

Main  Hall.  See  Universitv 
Hall  J 

Mallory,  R.  D.,  football  hero, 
312 

Mann,  Horace,  lectures  at 
Madison,  69-70;  Report  on 
German  Schools,  43 

Manufactures,  in  Wisconsin, 
204-205;  in  Middle  Vvest,  241 

Marathon  County,  university 
lands  in,  168 

Marquette  (Mich.),  iron  ore 
near,  336 

Marryat,  Capt.  Frederick,  visits 
Wisconsin,  7-8,  63 

Marsh,  Capt.  Edwin,  in  the 
Civil  War,  148 

Martineau,  Harriet,  visits  the 
United  States,  7 

Mason,  Stevens  T.,  founder  of 
Madison,  65 

Massachusetts,  educational  sys- 
tem, 35 

Mathematics,  chair  of,  102,  133, 
174,  235,  263;  department  of, 
113;  courses,  129-130;  in- 
structorship,  284 

Maurer,  E.  R.,  professor  of 
Engineering,  268,  285 

Maybury,  J.  H.,  athlete,  316 

Mead,  George  H.,  on  Allen  sur- 
vey, 367 

Mechanical  Engineering,  chair 
of,   267-268 

Mechanics,  department  of,  268, 
284,   285 

Medical  department,  discussed, 
77;  provided  for,  100,  104, 
113,  345,  380;  affiliated  stu- 
dents,  383 

Mendota  Lake,  location,  64; 
campus  on,  66,  70-71,  73,  166, 
371;  rowing  on,  315 


410 


INDEX 


Mendota  Wicket  Club,  139 

Mental  Philosophy,  chair  of, 
102,   133 

Metallurgy,  chair  of,  234,  284, 
332.  See  also  Mining  and 
Metallurgy 

Meyer,  B  H  ,  railway  commis- 
sioner, 295 

Miami  University,  chartered, 
40 

Michigan,  upper  peninsula,  2; 
early  settlement  of,  3;  be- 
comes a  state,  3;  population, 
3  note,  51  note;  financial  em- 
barrassments, 4,  99  note; 
Germans  in,  11;  illiterates 
in,  20;  appropriations  for 
education,  37  note,  45  note; 
taxation,  53  note 

Michigan  Lake,  as  a  boundary, 
1;  posts  on,  4;  settlers  along 
shore   of,    12 

Michigan  Agricultural  College, 
57-59,  178,  277;  graduate, 
178 

Michigan  College  of  Mines, 
president,  285 

Michigan  University,  land 
grants,  37,  44-46,  55-56,  100 
note;  early  history,  41-43;  re- 
organized, 46-48;  growth,  48- 
50,  57,  243;  president,  326; 
professor,  246,  295;  Jubilee 
delegates,  360-361 ;  athletic 
rivalry  with,  312,  316;  gradu- 
ate study  at,  244;  compared 
with  Wisconsin,  50-56,  75,  81, 
86,   99-100,    107-108,   136 

Microscopic  petrology,  art  of, 
335 

Middle  West,  state  university 
development  in,  241-243; 
presidents  of  universities  in, 
326 

Middlebury  College,  faculty 
member  from,  134 

Military  hops,  democratic  char- 
acter', 309 

Military  tactics,  and  Morrill 
grant.  161,  163;  professor  of, 
183-1S4 


Milk  Test,  invention  of,  274- 
275,  277 

Miller,  E.  G.,  volunteer,  147; 
captain,  148 

Mills,  Simeon,  early  Madison- 
ian,  687;  state  senator,  81; 
treasurer  of  university,  84- 
85;   regent,  74 

Milwaukee,  lake  port,  4,  12,  13, 
63;  founder  of,  9;  Germans 
in,  11;  proposed  capital, 
68 

Milwaukee  Sentinel,  editor,  29 
note,  82;   cited,  107 

Minahan,  Eben,  Jubilee  ad- 
dress, 361 

Mineral  Point  Road,  bounds 
campus,  73-74 

Mineralogy,  professor  of,  332 

Mining  and  Metallurgy,  course 
in,  183,  185,  332.  See  also 
Metallurgy 

Minnesota,  formed  in  part  from 
Wisconsin,  2;  growth  of, 
242 

Minnesota  Boat  Club,  race 
with,  315 

Minnesota  University,  59;  foot- 
ball rivalry  with,  312-314, 
328;   Jubilee  delegate,  361 

Minnetonka  Lake,  regatta  on, 
315 

Mississippi  Valley,  early  rail- 
roads in,  54;  economic 
changes  in,  241-243 

Missouri,  German  settlers  in, 
10 

Missouri  Botanic  Gardens,  di- 
rector, 235 

Missouri  University,  organized, 
41,  59;  president,  174;  Jubi- 
lee delegate,  361 

Modern  Languages,  chair  of, 
102,  117,  133,  175.  See  also 
English,  French,  and  German 

Monona  Lake,  location,  64,  66; 
residences  on   shore  of,  67 

Moody,  Anna  W.,  preceptress, 
151-152 

Moon,  R.  A.,  agronomist,  278- 
279 


INDEX 


411 


Morrill  Act,  for  agricultural 
education,  59,  161-163,  167, 
183;   supplementary  act,  272 

Morrison,  W.  H.,  superintend- 
ent of  farmers'  institute,  276 

Mosely  Education  Commission, 
visits  Wisconsin,  357 

Muir,  John.  Autobiography, 
cited,  71,  127 

Museum,  authorized,  85  note; 
established,  136;  new  home 
for,  211 

Music,  department  of,  233; 
school  of,  organized,  253, 
304 

Muskego  Lake,  Norwegians  set- 
tle on,  14 


N 
National    Education    Associa 

tion,  226 
Natural    Philosophy    and    As 

tronomy,  chair  of,    175,   212 
Nebraska  University,  noted,  59 

285 
Nelson,    F.    W.,    football    hero 

313 
New  Englanders,  in  Wisconsin 

5,    26,    50,    82;     educational 

system,  35,  251;   intellectual 

movements,  42 
New  York,  emigrants  from  4-5, 

50,    83;    Norwegians    in,    12; 

literary   fund    in,   35;    sends 

students  to  Michigan,  49 
New    York    City,    as    port    of 

entry,   13 
New  York  Experiment  Station, 

272,  280 
New  York  Nation,  contributors, 

247,  288,  291,  350 
New  York  Tribune,  cited,  70 
Newspapers.      See    Journalism 

and  Pres9 
Nicodemus,  Maj.  William  J.  L., 

professor,  184;  death,  232 
Nolan,    John,    landscape   archi- 
tect, 372 
Non-resident  students,  increase 

of,   375 


Norcross,  Pliny,  enlists,  146; 
captain,  148 

Normal  department  of  Univer- 
sity, 58,  76-78,  100,  104-106, 
113,  117,  119,  143,  188-189; 
organized,  151-153;  director, 
174.  See  also  Pedagogy  and 
Teachers 

Normal  schools,  founded  by 
state,   45  note,    106-107,    375 

North  American  Review,  cited, 
226 

North  Dakota,  growth  of,  242 

North  Dakota  University,  dean 
of  Law  School,  285 

North  Hall,  first  university 
building,  75-76;  opened  for 
students,  30;  heating  appa- 
ratus, 75,  156;  a  dormitory, 
209;  class  rooms  in,  215 

Northrup,  Cyrus,  Jubilee  ad- 
dress,  361 

Northwest  Territory,  area,  1 ; 
states  formed  from,  5,  39; 
sectionalism  in,  50-51 

Northwestern  University,  inter- 
collegiate games  with,  310 

Norway,  university  of,  273 

Norwegians,  emigrate  to  Wis- 
consin, 12-15;  newspapers,  20 

Nurseries,  inspection  of,  276 

O 

Observatory.  See  Washburn 
Observatory 

Observatory  Hill,  house  on, 
167;  slope,  178;  buildings 
on,  212-213 

Ochsner,  Dr.  Albert  J.,  alum- 
nus, 283 

Oconomowoc,  regatta  at,  315 

O'Dea,  Andrew,  athletic  coach, 
315 

O'Dea,  Patrick,  football  hero, 
314,   316 

Ohio,  population  growth,  3 
note;  emigration  from,  5; 
admission  to  Union,  32;  edu- 
cational land  grants  divided, 
40;  sends  students  to  Michi- 
gan, 49 


412 


INDEX 


Ohio  Agricultural  College, 
founded,  59 

Ohio  Company,  negotiates  with 
Congress,   31-32 

Ohio  University,  founded,  40, 
59;   faculty  from,  134 

Old  Northwest.  See  North- 
west Territory 

Olin,  John  M.,  professor  of 
Law,  266;  reads  Jubilee  bac- 
calaureate, 360 ;  former  home, 
373 

Olson,  Julius  E.,  professor  of 
Scandinavian  languages,   284 

Olympic  Wicket  Club,  139 

Oratorical  League  (Northern), 
founded,  317-318 

Oratory.    See  Rhetoric 

Ordinance  of  1787,  adopted,  21; 
origin  of  state  university 
idea,  31-33,  49 

Orton,  H.  S.,  dean  of  Law  de- 
partment, 176 

Outlook,  articles  in,   358 

Owen,  Edward  T.,  professor, 
233,  260 

Oxford  University,  Jubilee  dele- 
gates from,  360-362 


Paine,  Judge  Byron,  Law  lec- 
turer, 176 

Pan-American  Conference,  mem- 
ber, 295 

Pammel,  Louis  H.,  alumnus, 
284 

Pape,  "  Babe,"  baseball  hero, 
311 

Parker,  Fletcher  A.,  professor 
of  Music,  233 

Parkinson,  John  B.,  professor, 
165,  174;  regent,  165 

Paul,  George  H.,  president  of 
regents,  215,  219. 

Peabody,  Arthur,  state  archi- 
tect, 372 

Peabody,  George,  and  Georgia 
mission,  357 

Pease,  Col.  W.  R.,  professor, 
183-184 


Peck,  George  W.,  governor, 
cited,  302 

Pedagogy,  chair  of,  234,  297, 
See  also  Normal  Department 
and  Teachers. 

Pennsylvania,  emigration  from, 
5;  sends  students  to  Michi- 
gan, 49 

Pennsylvania  University,  row- 
ing rival,   315 

Penokee  Mountains,  ores  of, 
336 

"  Pepper  Party,"  demoraliza- 
tion by,  307 

Perry,  Arthur  L.,  Williamstown 
and  Williams  College,  173 
note;  cited,  194,  195-196 

Peterson,  Principal  William, 
Jubilee  address,  361-362 

Pharmacy,  course  in,  234; 
school  of  organized,  259 ;  di- 
rector, 285;  professor  of,  284 

Phi  Delta  Theta,  early  chapter 
of,    306 

Phi  Kappa  Psi,  organized,  306; 
chapter  house,  308 

Philomathia  Literary  Society, 
317 

Philosophy,  department  of,  113; 
Bascom's  teaching  of,  230; 
professorship   of,   263,   297 

Physics,  chair  of,  104,  183, 
212.  See  also  Agricultural 
Physics. 

Physics  and  Economics  Build- 
ing erected,  373-374 

Pickard,  Joseph  C,  professor 
117,   129,   133-134 

Pickard,  Josiah  L.,  regent,  116, 
117;   offered   presidency,    170 

Pickwick  Club,  commons,  306 

Pierce,  Rev.  John  D.,  educator, 
43,  45 

Pineries,  in  Wisconsin,  opened, 
16;  Cornell  lands  in,  168 
note;  exploited,  205-296;  ex- 
hausted,  241 

Politics,  and  university  land 
grants,  37.  54-55,  68 

Political  Science  and  History 
graduate  school,  261,  287-288, 


INDEX 


413 


290;    gifts    to,    293;    discon- 
tinued,  295 

Portage,  fort  at,  63 

Poughkeepsie  (N.  Y.),  regatta 
at,  316 

Power,  .Frederick  B.,  professor, 
234 

Powers,  H.  H.,  alumnus,  284 

Powers,  J.  H.,  professor  of 
Zoology,    285 

Prairie  du  Chien,  fort  at,  63 

Prairieville.     See  Waukesha 

Prairieville  Academy,  organ- 
ized, 86 

Preparatory  department,  build- 
ing for,  74;  opened,  29,  86, 
102,  112;  as  a  model  school, 
105;  discontinued,  113,  121, 
206,  222-223;  restricted,  120; 
resumed,  121,  151;  principal, 
174 

Pre-Medical  course,  established, 
282.  See  also  Medical  de- 
partment. 

Presidency,  supersedes  chancel- 
lorship, 164;  relation  to 
regents,  218,  220-221,  260 

Press,  early  conditions  in,  20, 
68;  of  university,  318-319. 
See  also  Journalism. 

Press  Bulletin,  issued  by  the 
university,  356-357 

Princeton  Lniversity,  professor 
from,  134;  coach,  313 

Progressive  movement  in  Wis- 
consin politics,  338,  358,  362- 
364;  overthrown,  365 

Prohibition,  Bascom  advocates, 
239 

"Prom,"  first  given,  307;  play 
at  time  of,  321 

Proudfit,  Andrew,  state  senator, 
162 

Prussia,  educational  system,  43, 
48 

Psychology,  course  in,  225; 
chair  of  experimental,  281 

Public  Instruction,  state  super- 
intendent, 86,  170,  223;  mem- 
ber of  board  of  regents, 
164 


Public  lands,  grants  for  educa- 
tion, 16,  106,  161-162;  politi- 
cal importance,  37,  54-55 ; 
sales,  95-96,  155;  valuations, 
88-93,  100  note,  167-168.  See 
also  Congressional  land 
grants. 

Pyre,  James  V.  A.,  professor  of 
English,  285;  football  hero, 
313 

Pyre,  Walton,  dramatics,  320 

R 

Racine  College,  commended, 
109 ;  intercollegiate  games 
with,   310 

Rague,  J.  F.,  first  architect  of 
university,  74 

Railroad  Engineering,  chair  of, 
268 

Railroads,  growth  of,  4,  16,  54, 
242;  first  at  Madison,  68; 
land  grant  for,  91  note 

Railway  Rate  Commission, 
created,  363;  member,  295 

Randall,  Gov.  Alexander,  mes- 
sage, 110;  during  war  time, 
145 

Raymer,  George  W.,  college 
editor,  318;  former  home, 
373 

Read,  Daniel,  professor,  102, 
104,  106,  133,  157;  salary, 
103;  supports  Lathrop,  115; 
reappointed,  17;  courses,  129, 
135;  resigns,  134,  174;  home, 
137,  167 

Red  Domino  dramatic  club,  321 

Regattas,  Wisconsin's  part  in, 
315,  317 

Regents,  board  of,  law  provid- 
ing for,  80,  113;  method  of 
choosing,  80-81,  164;  first 
board,  81-87;  first  meeting, 
29,  72,  87;  report,  73,  75; 
report  of  1864,  146;  early 
meetings,  74.  88;  business 
ability,  217-221;  financial 
policy,  89-99,  108-109;  power 
to  sell  lands,  89  note,  96;  re- 
organized,   112-117,    164-166; 


414 


INDEX 


relation  of  president,  218,  220- 
221,  238;  on  academic  free- 
dom, 292.  , 

Reinsch,  Paul  S.,  minister  to 
China,  286,  295 

Reisen  in  Amerika,  incentive 
for  emigration,   13 

Religious  denominations,  in 
Wisconsin,  25;  colleges  sup- 
ported by,  38-39;  to  teach 
theology,  101,  107.  See  also 
Sectarianism 

Remick,  Capt.  Otis,  in  Civil 
War,  148 

Reorganization,  bills  for,  112- 
113;  undertaken  by  regentSj 
115-118,  141;  ineffective,  12i, 
123;  of  1866,  161-164,  218; 
of  1889,  259-260 

Research  by  faculty,  encour- 
aged, 258-259,  272,  281,  344, 
346-347,  376-378.  See  also 
Graduate  Study 

Review  of  Reviews,  articles  in, 
358 

Rhetoric  and  Oratory,  chair  of, 
174,  233,  297-299 

Richards,  Harry  S.,  dean  of 
Law  College,  267 

Richards,  John  R.,  football 
hero,  313-314;  on  track  team, 
316 

Richter,  A.  W.,  instructor,  268; 
professor,  285 

Ripon  College,  and  Morrill  land 
grant,  162-163 

Roads,  military  in  Wisconsin, 
,63 

Robbins  bill,  on  university  re- 
organization, 112-113,  115 

Robinson,  Dr.  F.  B.,  alumnus, 
283 

Rock  County,  settled,  64;  na- 
tive son,  331 

Rock  River,  Norwegians  settle 
on,  14;  navigability  of,  64 

Roosevelt,  Theodore,  adminis- 
tration, 337,  339;  eulogizes 
Wisconsin,  358 

Root,  Eleazar,  regent,  83;  char- 
acterized, 85-87 


Rosenstengel,  William  H.,  pro- 
fessor of  German,  228,  233, 
297;   method,  298-299 

Rountree,  John  H.,  regent,  82- 
83;  resigns,  83-84 

Rowing,  intercollegiate  con- 
tests in,  314-317 

Running,  Theodore,  professor  of 
Mathematics,  286 

Rushing.  See  Greek  Letter  So- 
cieties 

Russell,  Harry  L.,  professor, 
273;  inventor,  274;  call  to 
New  York,  280 ;  dean  of  Agri- 
culture, 285;  cited,  271-272 

Ryan,  J.  E.,  football  hero,  313 

St.  Louis,  botanic  gardens  at, 
235;  exposition,  357 

Salaries,  in  days  of  origin,  94, 
103;  during  the  Civil  War, 
155-156,  158;  after  reorgan- 
ization, 171,  207-208;  under 
Chamberlin,  261 

Salisbury,  Rollin  D.,  goes  to 
Chicago,  332 

Salomon,  Edward,  a  German 
immigrant,  11-12;  president 
of  regents,  164-165,  158,  271 

Saltonstall  Lake,  regatta  on, 
315 

Sanborn,  Arthur  L.,  professor 
of  Law,  325 

Sanderson,  R.  B.,  regent,  165 

Sanford,  Albert  H.,  professor 
of  History,  285 

Saxe,  John  G.,  lectures  at  Madi- 
son, 69 

Scandinavian  languages,  chair 
of,  233,  284 

Schindler,  J.  J.,  journalist, 
319 

Schurz,  Carl,  emigrates  to  Wis- 
consin, 11;  protege  of,  117 

Science  courses,  established, 
131,  151,  177,  225  note;  en- 
larged, 177,  282;  apparatus 
for,  136;  graduate  of,  332. 
See  also  Letters  and  Science, 
College  of 


INDEX 


415 


Science  Hall,  built,  210; 
burned,  75,  211,  214; 
equipped,  214;  rebuilt,  216- 
217;    uses,  302 

Schools.    See  Education 

Scotch,  in  tVisconsin,  9,  26 

Scott,  Will  .am  A.,  professor  of 
economics,  281;  director  of 
School  of  Commerce,  295 

Sealfield,  Charles,  visits  Ohio 
Valley,  7 

Searing,  Edward,  superintend- 
ent of  public  instruction,  223 

Secret  Societies.  See  Greek  Let- 
ter Societies. 

Sectarianism,  forces  of,  52-53, 
231 ;  opposes  university,  107- 
108,  186;  forbidden  at  uni- 
versity, 163  See  also  Re- 
ligious Denominations 

Sectionalism  in  Northwest  Ter- 
ritory, 50-51 

Segregation,  temporary,  187- 
188;   discussed,  226 

Self-Government  Association, 
formed  by  women,  323 

Service  to  state,  spirit  of  uni- 
versity, 347-354 ;  not  political 
activity,  364-365;  obtained 
by  research,  377 

Sheldon,  "  Taffy,"  baseball  hero, 
311 

Service  Building,  erected,  373 

Shackleford,  Charles,  student, 
139 

Shaw,  Dr.  Albert,  cited,  338; 
eulogizes  Wisconsin,  358 

Sheldon,  Walter  H.,  football 
hero,  313 

Showerman,  Grant,  author,  319 

Short  Course.  See  Agriculture, 
short  course  and  Dairying 

Sigma  Chi,  organized,  306 

Skien  (Norway),  emigrants 
from,  13 

Slichter,  Charles  S.,  instructor, 
284 

Sloan,  I.  C.,  professor  of  Law, 
266 

Smith,  A.  Hyatt,  regent,  81-82; 
address  at  inauguration,  87 


Smith,  Albert  W.,  professor  of 
JMachine  Design,  268 

Smith,  Almon,  killed  in  Civil 
War,  150 

Smith,  Augustus  L.,  regent,  165 

Smith,  George  B.,  commissioner 
of  school  lands,  91  note 

Smith,  Henry,  died  in  Civil 
War,  150 

Smith,  Hiram,  regent,  219.  See 
also  Hiram  Smith  Hall 

Smith,  Howard  L.,  professor  of 
Law,  267 

Smith,  Janet  M.,  dramatics,  320 

Smith,  John  F.,  vice  president 
of  Alumni  Association,  156 

Smith,  Leonard  S.,  instructor, 
268;  professor  of  Surveying, 
^85 

Smith,  Walter  M.,  librarian, 
285 

Smithsonian  Institute,  lecturer, 
171 

Social  Club,  organized,  307 

Socialism,  study  of,  291 

Soils,  reclamation  of,  276 

Songs,  for  the  university,  304, 
320 

Sororities.  See  Greek  Letter 
Societies 

South  Dakota,  growth  of,  242 

South  Hall,  built,  76,  97;  uses, 
105,  127,  209;  normal  de- 
partment in,  152;  heating 
apparatus,  156;  class  rooms, 
215;  College  of  Agriculture, 
279,  302 

Speculation,  era  of,  4,  54;  re- 
tards development,  67;  in 
university  lands,  90-92 

Special  students,  courses  for, 
226 

Sphinx,   college   paper,   318-319 

Spooner,  Capt.  John  C,  in  Civil 
War,  148;  promotes  appro- 
priation act,  169;  regent, 
220-221 

Stagg,  A.  A.,  Chicago  coach, 
,314,   316 

Starkweather,  Asher,  died  in 
the  Civil  War,  150 


416 


INDEX 


State  Teachers'  Association,  at 
Barnard's  inauguration,  119 

State  universities,  origin  of, 
31-34;  rapid  development  of, 
241-243;   idea  of,  341-344 

Stavanger  ( Norway ),  emigrants 
from,  12 

Steam  Engineering,  chair  of, 
268 

Stearns,  John  W.,  professor  of 
Education,  234;  methods, 
297-298 

Sterling,  John  W.,  at  Carroll 
College,  86;  first  professor, 
29-30,  86,  93,  101,  115,  129, 
132,  134,  136,  212;  acts  as  li- 
brarian, 85;  salary,  103;  act- 
ing president,  118,  157,  170, 
186;  petition  for,  175;  cited, 
158-159 

Sterling,  Susan  A.,  assistant 
professor  of  German,  284 

Stickney,  H.  O.,  coach,  313 

Stock.     See  Animal  Husbandry 

Stock  Pavilion,  built,  372;  uses, 
373 

Stone,  Capt.  Emory  F.,  in  Civil 
War,  148 

Stothard,  Herbert,  dramatic  au- 
thor, 321 

Student  Court,  for  social  re- 
sponsibility, 324 

Student  life,  in  early  univer- 
sity, 125-128,  139-143;  in- 
crease of  activities,  252-253; 
changes  in,  257;  during 
Adams'  administration,  SOS- 
SOS;  in  recent  times,  306-330; 
democracy  of,  354 

Students'  clubs,  in  early  days, 
137;  in  recent  times,  306, 
307 

Summer  Session,  attendance, 
376 

Superior  Lake,  as  a  boundary, 
1;  head  of,  2;  iron  ores  near, 
335-337 

Supreme  Court,  decision,  239 

Survey,  article  in,  367 

Sutherland,  Thomas  W.,  regent, 
83-84 


Sutton,  John  E.,  died  in  Civil 

War,  150 
Suydam,  John  V.,  surveyor,  65 

T 

Tappan,  Henry  P.,  of  Michi- 
gan University,  48,  55 

Tax  Commission,  created,  363 

Taxation,  statistics  of,  53  note 

Taychoperah.     See  Four  Lakes 

Taylor,  Bayard,  lectures  at 
Madison,  69-70,  77 

Teachers,  of  early  Wisconsin, 
20;  professional  training  for, 
43,  57,  119,  151,  242,  383; 
certificates,  206.  See  also 
Education,  Normal  depart- 
ment, and  Pedagogy. 

Teachers'  Institutes,  begun,  119 

Technical  Education,  German 
system,  43;  need  for,  57,  114; 
supplied,  112-113;  improve- 
ment of,  242;  courses  in,  180- 
188;  retardment  at  Wiscon- 
sin, 253;  expansion  of,  255- 
256,  269-270.  See  also  Voca- 
tional courses 

Telegraph,  arrives  at  Madison, 
67 

Ten  Eyck,  Albert  M.,  professor 
of  Agriculture,  286 

Tenney,  Horace  A.,  regent,  85 
note,  116,  136;   cited,  110 

Theology,  not  taught  in  a  state 
university,  101,  107 

Theses,  for  baccalaureate  de- 
gree, 283 

Thorpe,  F.  0.,  regent,   165 

Thwaites,  R.  G.,  secretary  of 
Wisconsin  Historical  Society, 
289;  University  of  Wiscon- 
sin, cited,  29  note 

Tobacco  industry  promoted, 
276 

Tocqueville,  Alexis  de,  visits 
America,  7 

Townley,  Sidney  D.,  professor 
of  Astronomy,  285 

Transcendentalism,  rise  of,  42 

Transportation,  increased  facil- 
ities for,  4,  6,  51-o2,  205 


INDEX 


417 


Tratt,  Paul  H.,  football  hero, 
314 

Travelers,  description  of,  7-8 

Tredway,  Capt.  J.  D.,  in  the 
Civil  War,  148 

Trees,  set  out  on  campus,  75; 
94,  179 

Trelease,  William,  professor, 
234;  resigns,  235 

Trochos,  college  annual,  318 

True,  Rodney  H.,  in  Plant  Bu- 
reau of  United  States,  285 

Tuition  fees,  of  students,  94-95, 
104,  127,  156,  207.  See  also 
Non-resident  Students 

Tullis,  David  H.,  commercial 
tutor,  121 

Turner,  Frederick  J.,  professor 
of  History,  284,  288-289;  at 
John  Hopkins,  290;  semi- 
nary, 294;  director  of  school, 
295;  college  editor,  318;  on 
intercollegiate  athletics,  328; 
Jubilee  address,  361;  Signifi- 
cance of  the  Frontier,  288 

Turneaure,  F.  E.,  professor  of 
Engineering,   268;    dean,   270 

Twentieth  Wisconsin  Infantry, 
recruited,  147-148 

Twombly,  Dr.  John  H.,  presi- 
dent, 186,  189;  resigns,  192 

U 

United  States  Signal  Service, 
180-181 

University  Act  of  1848,  80-81; 
of  1849,  89,  91;  of  1850,  89; 
of  1866,  161-164,  218 

University  extension,  impor- 
tance of,  258,  294,  344-345; 
established,  346 ;  enlarged, 
352,  358,  380-382 

University  Guards,  during  Civil 
War,  147 

University  (Main)  Hall, 
planned,  74;  built,  78,  97-98; 
fund  for,  110;  completed, 
120;  wings,  152,  372;  re- 
paired, 166,  214;  class  rooms 
in,  209-210,  261;  tablet  on, 
293;   rebuilt,  302 


University  High  School,  build- 
ing for,  373 

University  Press,  college  paper, 
,189,  318 

Upper  Campus,  purchased,  72- 
73;  laid  out,  74-75 

Urdahl,  Thomas  K.,  professor 
of  Economics,  285 


Vandeepoel,  Aaron,  owns  cam- 
pus, 71-72,  93 

Van  Hise,  Charles  R.,  instruc- 
tor, 234;  professor,  281,  284, 
332-333;  first  doctor  of  phi- 
losophy, 286,  333;  president 
244,  295,  327-328;  inaugu- 
ration, 330,  359-362;  admin- 
istration, 322,  331-385;  scien- 
tific work,  334-337;  national 
services,  339-340;  cited,  60, 
374;  characterized,  333-334; 
Concentration  and  Control, 
339;  Inaugural  Address,  60, 
342,  360,  377;  Treatise  on 
Metamorphism,  337. 

Van  Hise,  Charles  R.,  and 
Leith,  C.  K.,  The  Geology  of 
the  Lake  Superior  Region, 
337 

Van  Ornum,  John  L.,  professor 
of  Engineering,  285 

Van  Slyke,  N.  B.,  regent,  165, 
167,  210,  218-219 

Van  Velzer,  Charles  A.,  pro- 
fessor, 235 

Vermont,  emigration  from,  5 

Verrill,  Addison  E.,  professor, 
175-176 

Vilas,  Henry,  student,  139;  in 
Civil  War,  148 

Vilas,  Levi,  early  Madisonian, 
67;    regent,    116 

Vilas,  Col.  William  F.,  in 
Civil  War,  149;  Alumni  offi- 
cer, 156;  Law  professor,  176; 
regent,  220-221;  Jubilee  ad- 
dress, 361,  377;  legacy,  378- 
370 

Virginia  Universitv,  founded, 
34-35;  antedated,  40 


418 


INDEX 


Visitors,  Board  of,  in  terri- 
torial times,  71 

Vocational  courses,  addition  of, 
256;  relation  to  liberal  edu- 
cation, 349-351,  382-384.  See 
also  Technical  Education 


W 

Wabash  College,  professor 
from,  118 

Wakeley,  Charles  T.,  of  Class 
of  '54,  30;  president  of 
Alumni  Association,  156 

Waldo,  George  E.,  baseball 
hero,  311 

Ward,  Louis  M.,  dramatics, 
320 

Warner,  A.  G.,  lectures,  293; 
American  Charities,  294 

Warner,  Col.  Clement  E.,  in  the 
Civil  War,  149 

Washburn,  Cadwallader  C, 
partner,  82;  donor,  212-213; 
regent,  219-220 

Washburn  Observatory,  direc- 
tors' home,  167  note;  built, 
212-213;  director,  234,  235, 
281 

Watson,  James  C,  director  of 
Observatory,  212;  death,  232 

Waukesha,  college  at,  85 

Weinman,  Adolph,  sculptor, 
374 

Wells,  Oliver  E.,  superintend- 
ent of  public  instruction, 
291 

West,  Fannie,  wins  prize, 
190 

West  Point  Military  Academy, 
graduate,  82;  technical  train- 
ing at,  183-184,  232 

Western  Intercollegiate,  for 
athletics,  316,  326 

Wheeler,  Benjamin  I.,  Jubilee 
address,  36i 

Whig  party,  press,  82,  84 

White,  Andrew  D.,  president 
of  Cornell,  247 

Whitewater  Normal  School, 
faculty,  245 


Whitney,  N.  0.,  professor  of 
Railroad   Engineering,  268 

Whiton,  Edward  V.,  appointed 
regent,   81,   83 

Williams,  Charles  M.,  baseball 
hero,  311 

Williams,  William  H.,  instruc- 
tor, 233;  professor  of  He- 
brew,  284 

Williams  College,  graduate,  80- 
86,  171,  192,  265;  president, 
172,  236;  coeducation  pro- 
posed for,  226 

Williamson,  John,  Madison 
pioneer,  72 

Wines,  Frederick  H.,  lectures, 
293;  Punishment  and  Refor- 
mation, 294 

Wing,  C.  B.,  professor  of 
Bridge  and  Hydraulic  Engi- 
neering, 268 

Winslow,  Horatio,  author,  319; 
dramas,  321 

Winston  Mary  F.,  alumna,  285 

Wisconsin,  topographical  de- 
scription of,  1-2;  population 
statistics,  3,  9,  11,  14,  19, 
51  note,  67,  203-204;  pioneer 
history,  2-3,  51 ;  immigration, 
4-16,  50-51;  motto,  24;  travel- 
ers in,  7-8;  geologist,  245; 
characterized,  16-24;  frontier 
days,  26-27;  passes  from 
frontier  stage,  203-205,  241- 
243;  legislature,  73,  275 

Wisconsin  Historical  Society, 
organized,  69,  86 ;  at  the  capi- 
tol,  294;  new  quarters,  164- 
165,  289,  300-301,  368,  373; 
collections  utilized,  288;  his- 
tory of,  289;  legacy  for, 
305 

Wisconsin  Literary  Magazine, 
college  paper,  318 

Wisconsin  Territory,  organized, 
3;  admitted  to  Union.  3;  de- 
scribed, 7-8;  legislation  in,  28 

Woll,  F.  W.,  professor  of  Agri- 
culture, 273 

Women,  among  Wisconsin 
pioneers,  18-19;  enter  Normal 


INDEX 


419 


course,  119,  143,  152-153,  188- 
189;  health  of  students,  226; 
increase  in  numbers,  256.  See 
also  Coeducation 

Women's  Buildisg.  See  Chad- 
bourne  Hall  and  Lathrop 
Hall 

Woodman,  Cyrus,  regent,  82, 
87;  gifts,  82  note,  213 


Yahaba  River.     See  Catfish 
Yale  University,  faculty   from, 

134;   athletic  rival,  315-316; 

Jubilee  delegates  from,  360 
Young,  W.  W.,  journalist,  319 


Zoology,  chair  of,  285 


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